Last week I broke the story about FEMA director Mike Brown, whose ten-year tenure at the International Arabian Horse Association left him stunningly unqualified to lead national relief efforts. It has been a pleasant surprise to watch the story take flight, first on the national blogosphere, and now in the MSM. But none of the news coverage has been quite as gratifying as seeing a reference creep into a column by the New York Times’ Paul Krugman.
Mr. Brown had no obvious qualifications, other than having been Mr. Allbaugh’s college roommate. But Mr. Brown was made deputy director of FEMA; The Boston Herald reports that he was forced out of his previous job, overseeing horse shows. And when Mr. Allbaugh left, Mr. Brown became the agency’s director. The raw cronyism of that appointment showed the contempt the administration felt for the agency; one can only imagine the effects on staff morale.
That contempt, as I’ve said, reflects a general hostility to the role of government as a force for good. And Americans living along the Gulf Coast have now reaped the consequences of that hostility.
The administration has always tried to treat 9/11 purely as a lesson about good versus evil. But disasters must be coped with, even if they aren’t caused by evildoers. Now we have another deadly lesson in why we need an effective government, and why dedicated public servants deserve our respect. Will we listen?
I have received emails or comments from more than a dozen IAHA members, and while a handful have taken issue with my reporting of the circumstances surrounding Brown’s resignation, it doesn’t really matter if he was forced to resign or his departure was mutual. It doesn’t even matter if his tenure was indeed “an unmitigated, total fucking disaster” as my original source contended. What matters is that his job experience left him totally unprepared to manage our nation’s disaster relief operations… a lack of preparation clearly evidenced by FEMA’s criminally inadequate response in New Orleans.
The issue here, as Krugman and others point out, is cronyism… cronyism that in this instance, may have turned out to have fatal consequences.
The story of Brown, the horse show commissioner cum FEMA chief, adds much needed color and context to accounts of the Bush administration’s disastrous disaster relief efforts, and its haphazard approach to political appointments in general. And the story of the story — how an angry email from a longtime HA reader moved international headlines — is a vivid example of how the blogosphere can amplify the voice of the people, so that any one citizen can speak as loud or louder than the most obstreperous talking head.
Truth is, I didn’t really even know what I had. I rarely cross-post to Daily Kos, but since this was a national issue, and I was angry, I thought, what the hell. My original headline was a profane rant, and the first few comments insisted that this was too important a diary to be lost due to a non-descriptive headline. I followed their advice, changed the headline, went to bed… and awoke the next morning to find the story featured on Kos, and the traffic flooding in. Then the calls and emails from the MSM started coming, and I knew we were going to move headlines.
So if any of you out there believe that you cannot make a difference, let this be lesson to the contrary. A single email from a horse breeder to the proprietor of an oddly named local blog provided the angle the MSM needed to expose the Bush administration cronyism that doomed thousands of Katrina’s victims to a week of unimaginable — and unnecessary — suffering, and which may have condemned thousands of others to an untimely death.
This is democracy in action.
I suppose it is because of racial profiling that all the looters and rioters seen on TV were/are black.
Don’t hurt yourself patting yourself on the back. I suspect someone would have figured out the story soon enough. Are you even sure that Krugman’s source was you?
FEMA has long been a bureaucratic monstrosity. It did well in Florida because Jeb Bush is a better governor than Blanco. He was prepared up front, and managed the process afterwards. FEMA just followed orders.
Louisiana politicos expected FEMA to be the lead. Yes, Mike Brown should be fired. But the blame can be spread around. I was just listening to a news story about “red tape”. A FEMA truck with water couldn’t get across a draw bridge, because it was in the up position. The National Guard troops couldn’t get clearance to close the bridge. Sounds like a classic case of incompetence. But, then, the rest of the story:
If the draw bridge was closed, it couldn’t be reopened! That would block the waterway, which was more important to the effort than the water being carried in the FEMA truck. Why didn’t the FEMA guys just boat the water across?
Red tape should not be confused with setting priorities. The person standing in front of the bridge doesn’t have the full story. Unfortunately, the person in front of the bridge had the TV cameras, and the idiocy of a reporter, ready to report on what they don’t understand.
Your scoops are the reason this site continues to thrive. This is undoubtedly your biggest scoop of the year — I can’t wait to see how it plays out at the coming Senate hearings. But you’ve had a number of smaller victories that were nearly as satisfying — the first on the LCV endorsement, the Irons Vigil turned editorial, etc.
Keep up the great work.
Awesome scoop, Goldy! I read it here first and I thought this is a big deal, and sure enough, it spread like wildfire. The real scandal in my opinion is that it is only after a major catastrophe happens that the media and the blogs start questioning Bush’s choice of FEMA director. I mean, this is such an important job, and he appoints some friend with no experience?? It just shows how much Bush truly cares about national security! Not much.
Janet S. is like a Republican talking points machine (ok, Brown should be fired but it’s really the locals who are at fault — the federal government can’t do anything but sit back and watch people die unless the mayor of drowned and dying city goes through a formal beaurocratic process first!). Goldy, you must be doing something right because I have never seen a liberal blog that has soooo many right-wing trolls who couldn’t live without it! I mean, these trolls read it religiously (no pun intended) and post on everything you write. If you stopped blogging, there would be hundreds of right-wing nutjobs with nothing to do all day, and probably in need of meds. Keep up the good work, Goldy!
and how does being the MC of a cable show qualify you to lead local efforts (mayor worked at Cox Cable, famous for his show about coming tv shows)
or Gov was politician, prior to that a schoolteacher.
Please explain their role in all this, solely the people who request help from the feds, or something perhaps more worthy of their title.
Wonder who leaked the shot of the 200 buses the mayor left standing..?
And can you track down the cops who quit….why should a guardsman from 200 miles away be more worried about NO than its citizens (cops who fled).
Yipes, nice try
Janet S. is like a Republican talking points machine (ok, Brown should be fired but it’s really the locals who are at fault — the federal government can’t do anything but sit back and watch people die unless the mayor of drowned and dying city goes through a formal beaurocratic process first!). Goldy, you must be doing something right because I have never seen a liberal blog that has soooo many right-wing trolls who couldn’t live without it! I mean, these trolls read it religiously (no pun intended) and post on everything you write. If you stopped blogging, there would be hundreds of right-wing nutjobs with nothing to do all day, and probably in need of meds. Keep up the good work, Goldy!
Janet S
The plural of “anecdote” is not “data”. Yes the local gov’s failed them… in which case it is the job and responsibility of FEMA to provide coordination and material and logistical assistance. Unfortunately for you, the failure of FEMA is the failure of Republican policies, not of the governors or mayors who have no control over FEMA.
Well done, Goldy! This story needed to hit the media before it gets into full right-wing spin mode.
Nice job, Goldy. Kudos too, to the caring citizen who exposd this fraud.
I have been really doubting whether ANYTHING can penetrate the armour this incompetent unethical and immoral administration has erected around itself.
THIS however, is a great development. The arrogance and hubris of this bunch will bring them down. there are so many more of us who will expose them for the corrupt frauds they are.
We’ll get ’em…it’ll take time, but we’ll get ’em!
…and damn these right wing nuts.
I have some sympathy for how difficult it must be for them to watch the leader of their party collapse. It’s difficult to let go of a particularly pleasant dream — like the one that Bush is a strong, decisive leader in times of crisis. And watching that dream drown must be tough.
But the kind of wicked finger pointing on display here and on countless AM radio stations is repulsive. It’s often overtly racist (see #1) or grossly distorted (see #2).
As has been reported elsewhere, “blaming the locals” has become the official Republican campaign to rebuild people’s faith in the president.
This is a dangerous gamble. It reminds us that the administration that promised they would protect us in these tough times has failed us. This is one of the prices of presedential leadership in America — you get all the praise and all the blame. It’s the buck-stops-here principle.
When Bush Co sold this country last year on this President’s ability to provide “steady leadership in times of change”, we thought we could count on him to make sure that no American would have to run for his life through an American city again.
And they failed us. The president failed us. His cabinet failed us. American’s were starving, drowning and suffering. And I’ll tell you what local officials were doing: they were begging the federal government to help them out.
I’m sorry, Mr. Rove, you can’t campaign yourself out of this mess. Failure of leadership this profound can’t be spun out.
As has been reported elsewhere, “blaming the locals” has become the official Republican campaign to rebuild people’s faith in the president.
Yep, it’s already starting!
—
Boustany three days ago:
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.
It is absoltely wonderful to see the sheer joy on the left when people are still dying in N.O. Kudos for your energy and enthusiasm, if not for your timing.
I suppose I shouldn’t be shocked that the media hadn’t done this research on Brown when Bush first nominated him…That’s too much to ask.
12 – He took an oath to protect the American people and he played guitar and ate cake instead. His staged photo-ops endangered lives.
bluesky @ 13
It is shocking that even the famed Krugman Goldy fawns over did not speak out earlier. Although if he did there is a 75% chance that even the far left could believe him and that the NYT would have to issue corrections after.
http://www.nationalreview.com/.....240848.asp
bite me NoWonder. Nobody’s happy about people dying. We are, however, encouraged that more people are realizing that this Emperor (Bush) isn’t wearing any clothes.
Since America has taken in millions of illegal Mexicans, perhaps Mexico will take in a few hundred thousand New Orleans homeless. Of course Fox must give them free education, health care, welfare, and food stamps. Mexico is a proud country. I’m sure them will take in EVERY black from New Orleans. [hehe]
NoWonder @15…Wow, quoting The National Repuke. You are quite the scholar.
nowonder @ 15
what the hell is NRO trying to say? Looks like Krugman was right–using the phrase “full manual recount,” Gore indeed would have won according to the NYT article.
nowonder @ 15
what the hell is NRO trying to say? Looks like Krugman was right–using the phrase “full manual recount,” Gore indeed would have won according to the NYT article.
Using Washington State rules… definitely. Florida is smarter than Washington though. They don’t allow the donks to come in with their “bag-o-ballots” to steal elections.
Goldy, you want to blame Bush for EVERYTHING.
The thousands of people who probably died in this disaster in the poor (mostly) black neighborhoods in New Orleans are NOT the fault of President Bush. It has much more to do with the failure of the system in New Orleans over the last, and especially its failure due to Hurricane Katrina. We can start out with the total lack of any emergency evacuation planning directed at ordinary citizens and the total lack of any plans to evacuate the more than 100,000 people lacking vehicles, resources or ability to leave on their own.
As for the more immediate issues, Mayor Nagin held off until Sunday morning to order an evacuation — nearly a full day after neighboring parishes ordered evacuation. There were numerous public buildings in the above sea level areas of New Orleans that could have accommodated tens of thousands of people, but Nagin only made the Superdome available. Then hundreds of shcool buses and public buses were parked in lots well below sea level, and become flooded out and unuseable.
The levee breach at the 17th street canal on early Monday morning was KNOWN by City of New Orleans officials early on Monday morning, right after it happened:
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/b.....08_29.html
It was perfectly obvious that this levee breach would “fill the bowl” and literally drown entire neighborhoods. But Mayor Nagin did NOTHING on Monday to evacuate people on the still passable streets, when there was still the chance to do so. By Tuesday, these neighborhoods were submerged and accessible only by boat or helicopter.
There was also widespread looting and violence in New Orleans by Tuesday, the day after the hurricane. Many rescuers were already on the scene Tuesday (and also on Monday), but the rescue efforts had to be suspended due to the violence. Same thing with efforts by companies and organizations to deliver food, water and other supplies to New Orleans.
And if you consider all the grocery stores and supermarkets just in the 20% unflooded area of New Orleans (which is all next to the river and contiguous to the Superdome/Convention Center area), they probably had more than sufficient food and refreshments to sustain 50,000 people for quite a number of days.
The federal government could have done more to alleviate the suffering. But the state and local government in Louisiana could have prevented most of the suffering which took place in New Orleans — at least in the present situation.
In the long term, it simply isn’t tenable to build below sea level in a flood plain. If New Orleans had suddenly filled to 25 feet above sea level, instead of slowly filling to three or four feet above, 100,000 people or more would have died. And tragedy at the level suffered last week doesn’t require a hurricane — a terrorist could blow up a section of the levee on a clear night in May, and the same results would have taken place.
But regardless of what happened, or how it happened, it would still be BUSH’S FAULT and Bush’s fault alone.
The people who are supposed to be The Grown-Ups In Charge When Something Bad Happens, with George W. Bush off playing air guitar, are supposed to know what they’re on about. They are not supposed to get a fine-sounding job thanks to rank cronyism. I’m proud of you, Goldy! Since the MSM is trawling the blogs for the real news these days, thank heavens there are blogs like yours to step up to the plate.
Katrina was a horrific natural disaster. To America’s Angry Left it was yet another occasion to score political points against President George W. Bush. In the same spirit of opportunism that animated looters who stole television sets, Bush’s political foes frantically sought to blame the devastation on him.
A measure of the anti-Bush Left’s derangement is that it blames him for bad weather. “Complacency will no longer suffice, especially if experts are right in warning that global warming may increase the intensity of future hurricanes,” The New York Times editorialised on Thursday. “But since this administration won’t acknowledge that global warming exists, the chances of leadership seem minimal.”
Whether global warming exists or not, it did not cause Katrina, at least according to a news story that had appeared in the Times two days earlier: “Because hurricanes form over warm ocean water, it is easy to assume that the recent rise in their number and ferocity is because of global warming. But that is not the case, scientists say. Instead, the severity of hurricane seasons changes with cycles of temperatures of several decades in the Atlantic Ocean.”
Then we heard that the National Guard was unable to do its duty in the Gulf Coast because it had been “stretched thin” by deployment to Iraq; “deployed in a phony war”, as former New York Times editor Howell Raines claimed in a particularly inflammatory article in The Sydney Morning Herald and several US papers at the weekend. But as James Robbins pointed out in National Review Online, only 10.2 per cent of the US Army, including the guard and reserves, is in Iraq; 74.2 per cent, or 751,000 soldiers, are stationed in the US. In any case, this argument died down as the troops arrived in great force late in the week.
The most pernicious myth the Angry Left propagated was that the storm victims were neglected because of their race. “I feel that, if it was in another area, with another economic strata and racial make-up, that President Bush would have run out of Crawford a lot quicker and FEMA [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] would have found its way in a lot sooner,” said Al Sharpton, New York’s premier racial arsonist.
In fact, Katrina was an equal-opportunity destroyer. The media’s coverage of the disaster understandably centred on New Orleans, the biggest city in the region, which is two-thirds black. But the storm also devastated at least four suburban Louisiana parishes and three coastal Mississippi counties. All have white majorities, ranging from 69.8 per cent to 90.2 per cent. Appeals to race are especially dangerous when the US needs national solidarity. Special pleading on behalf of black victims may lead to special pleading on behalf of white victims. It may also reinforce ugly stereotypes. A USA Today editorial noted that most of the New Orleans victims were black, then added: “So are most of the looters.” And there have been reports of criminality that goes far beyond looting, including rape and murder. Avarice and depravity are human failings, but race-obsessed liberals may be contributing to the notion that they are racial ones.
The Angry Left seems finally to have settled on the claim that the Bush administration was incompetent, its actions slow and inept.
There may turn out to be some truth to this, but it’s far too early to apportion blame. Responding to a disaster of unprecedented proportions is a monumentally complicated task and it’s likely that officials at all levels of government made mistakes. Further, even the best-run government cannot work miracles, and it’s unclear how much better the response could have been.
In any case, deeming the Bush administration incompetent at this stage reflects nothing more than the prejudices of the administration’s critics and in some cases a plain disregard for the facts.
Journalist and blogger Andrew Sullivan, for example, lashed FEMA director Michael Brown for saying he hadn’t learned until Thursday that several thousand people needed help at the New Orleans Convention Centre. “Brown apparently doesn’t get CNN,” Sullivan sneered.
But CNN didn’t report on the convention centre situation until Thursday and no other news organisation seems to have known before then that more than a handful of people were there.
The American people seem to be taking a fair-minded view of all this. An ABC News poll released yesterday found that 55 per cent of Americans didn’t blame the President for Katrina’s devastation. And while 67 per cent thought the federal Government wasn’t adequately prepared, 75 per cent said the same of state and local government. As with all the previous efforts to discredit the Bush administration, this one seems likely to fail.
Besides, one claim no one has had the audacity to make is that John Kerry would have done better. President Kerry, after all, would have faced this disaster with a total of 7 1/2 months’ administrative experience in his lifetime.
I love it – I write a story that points out how ineffectual FEMA is, and I am accused of spouting republican talking points. Boy, you guys need to learn how to read.
Legally, the federal government cannot order a city to be evacuated. If Bush had ordered it done over the protests of the governor, every democrat in this country would be calling for his impeachment by Tuesday morning. The governor of Louisiana did not think that lives were in danger, and so did not react appropriately. Looking back now, it is obvious that local response was woefully inadequate.
So, if your point is that Bush should have declared an emergency and wrested control of Louisiana from the local officials, then, I might agree with you.
Pope – …. so if (God forbid) a nuclear device detonates in a US city, should the Feds hold back until the local system has done all it can, and has asked the feds for help, and filled out the appropriate paperwork…? Is that really the response you want from the federal govt? The fault is the federal govt, partly due to “cronyism”, and the buck, ultimately, stops at the oval office desk.
Reply to 1
” … interesting is how the media fuels the nation’s racial imagery.
“Here’s one news photos of a white couple with the caption: ‘Two residents wade through chest-deep water after finding bread and soda from a local grocery store…’
“Here’s another photo of a black man with the caption: ‘A young man walks through chest-deep water after looting a grocery store…'”
http://www.komotv.com/kenschram/story.asp?ID=38901
Hmmm … you ask if RACE had anything to do with how the RIGHT WING MEDIA portrayed the looting … ?
Comment on 4
“Janet S.” is a tape recorder operated by a 9-year-old kid.
cronyism…?
Do you think Bush is the first president to appoint a crony in his administration that wasn’t qualified to be in that position? I am sure I could point out more than a few in other administrations (on both sides of the aisle).
This bickering about who’s fault it is before all of the facts are known is total bullshit. Spend your energy praying for the victims and maybe even send them a couple of bucks. There will be enough time in the future to tar and feather a couple of politicians. (i’m guessing that there will be a few from each side of the aisle on that one too) Then we can bicker fulltime with knowledge, rather than speculation
Goldy if this story holds (and I think it will) great job. These are the type of things that DO need to come out. But, I think it tells only a part of the story. The best is yet to come.
Take care
@12
“12 – He took an oath to protect the American people and he played guitar and ate cake instead. His staged photo-ops endangered lives.”
You mean like this? http://politicalhumor.about.co.....finger.htm Yeah, you’re dumb enough to confuse this guy with a lefty!
(Disclaimer: The linked photo is as phony as a 3-dollar bill or a Dick Cheney WMD speech! Rightys circulate photoshopped pics on the internet too, but unlike liberals they don’t tell you the pic is a fake! Bunch of sorry ass liars …)
@13
What do you expect from the right-wing biased MSM media?
fire_one @22
you need to think that one thru.
your argument as a tragic flaw in it and if you don’t see it…
that should read
your argument has a tragic flaw in it
Hey, Roger Rabbit, what exactly is it about my post that you think is so stupid? Sorry I don’t live on the same intellectual plane as you, I sure few live in such rarified air. But it is hard to have a discussion with someone who calls names instead of gives reasoned arguments.
And thanks to fire_one: You just supported my claim that Bush should have declared an emergency and moved the locals aside. They were an impediment. (By the way, the “paperwork” can be done by a fax machine and takes about two minutes. The governor cannot hide behind this as an excuse.)
@16
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/ent.....728930.stm
@29
“it is hard to have a discussion with someone who calls names instead of gives reasoned arguments”
Now you know what it’s like to be a liberal nowadays. Name calling? Uh, let’s see, how about “commie” or “pinko” or “socialist” or “traitor” or “unpatriotic” or “un-American”?
As for your question, if you want to be taken seriously and engage in debate here, you’ll need to work a little harder than just copying and pasting from right wing blogs.
This is pathetic.
The reality is…as I have stated REPEATEDLY….Louisiana has long been controlled by “good old boy and girl” politics that plague many states. In this case, the “good old boys & girls hijacked the Democratic Party to legitimize themselves. The blacks in New Orleans have been herded into a zone between the airport and French Quarter over the decades. Everyone knows it is well below sea level and vulnerable. The storm of the century hits and the Dems try to blame it on Bush. The reality is local and state politics herded blacks into this dangerous ghetto. Spin as hard as you want. New Orleans blacks have been duped and abused long before this storm came about….by good old boys and girls that hijacked the Democratic Party to keep the “Louisiana Natural Order of Things” dontcha see.
@22
Let’s have no illusions about what will happen when, not if, terrorists detonate a nuclear device in an American city.
As dazed survivors stagger from the heaps of radioactive rubble they’ll discover the afflicted area has been cordoned off by troops with orders to shoot anyone trying to get out of the area. Efforts to supply food and water to the destroyed city will be pitiful, medical care ad hoc to non-existent. The government’s main effort will be to keep the rivers of refugees from spreading fear and anarchy to the rest of society and, above all, to preserve the government’s power and control.
And the demagogues! Demagogues will harangue the stunned and shocked nation, demanding pitiless retribution against every conceivable real and imaginary enemy, all as cover for imposing martial law, stripping away citizens’ rights, taking care of political opponents, and irreversibly placing total control in the hands of a very, very few …
Janet S – and when have I ever said the Governor was not equally to blame. They should resign together…. Bush endangered peoples lives with his cronyism and his photo ops. That is the point. If you want to talk about the governor, we can start a new thread. The point is here about Bushco. So, do you agree that Bush endangered lives? Do you? If so, then you agree he should resign.
… oh yeah, and try faxing the paperwork from the middle of a nuclear holocaust…
Janet S @29
I can understand that, with your limited intellectual capacity, you may not understand the import of the Aug 27 declaration of a state of emergency, or the self-declared responsibility of the Dept of Homeland Security/FEMA in the event of a natural disaster.
Really, since you’re apparently barely one step above an animal, I’m amazed you can even type.
@24
Um, Janet, local officials DID order evacuation before the storm hit … it’s because of ill-informed posts and stupid arguments like this one, that no one takes you seriously.
Also, you have utterly failed to address the total lack of reality in the right-wing’s mantra that “it’s their own fault because they didn’t get out” … hellooooo … not everyone COULD get out! Tens of thousands of NO residents were too poor, too old, too young, or too sick, or had no money or no place to go — get real!
Same goes for you, Mr. C
@36
Since everybody knows Louisiana’s and New Orleans’ governments are corrupt and ineffectual, all the more reason why FEMA should have been johnny-on-the-spot, because there was no one else and they knew it … hey, Cynical, if you want to fire them all let’s go for it, starting at the top and working down.
New Orleans voter fraud……..I’m certain that Democrats [in the next election] will receive even more votes from blacks in New Orleans, even if the city is a ghost town. This will be interesting to watch. Perhaps King County in Washington State can “help” the local Democrats count the votes.
Roger @ 37
Good post I’m still lmao!! but you forgot the part about the governor trying to fax the paperwork to the feds. You know where her hands are so fried that her digits fall off as she puts the paperwork into the contaminated fax machine. And All the feds get on their end is paperwork that is unreadable because it was smeared with blood.
(in otherwords fire_one you can’t compare apples with oranges)
Still wondering why Nagrin is the teflon mayor…all he did was whine on the radio..
“This is a national disgrace. FEMA has been here three days, yet there is no command and control. We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can’t bail out the city of New Orleans.” –Terry Ebbert, Director of NOLA’s emergency management agency, complaining about FEMA’s evacuation plan for refugees in the Superdome. Unfortunately for Mr. Ebbert, the AP published this photograph the same day (Thursday, 01SEP05).
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmp.....1109012015
Mr. Ebbert suggests that FEMA’s crystal ball on levee failures needs some polishing. But, hindsight being what it is, perhaps Mr. Ebbert’s crystal ball was not so clear. In the photo attached, you can see more than 200 flooded school buses at the NO depot not far from the Superdome. In other words, once the evacuation order had been issued, why did Mr. Ebbert not position these buses in a location where they could be used for transportation.
200 buses with a capacity of about 60 people per bus means some 12,000 people could have been ferried away from the Superdome to Houston in about 15 hours. By Thursday, Mr. Ebbert could have gotten all NO’s refugees out on his own! Way to go Chief!
Memo to Mr. Ebbert: Wasn’t the use of these buses for evacuation part of your “preparedness planning” for your city in the event of, say, breached levees? School buses are part every competently-run municipality’s evac plan. Go have a look:
http://www.cityofno.com/portal.....8;tabid=26
Furthermore the local authorities failed to learn a thing from a similar event in 2004!
have a look here:
http://www.katv.com/news/stories/0904/174105.html
One emergency manager with half a clue and a couple hundred willing drivers could have more or less saved New Orleans from turning into Mad Max territory. Terry Ebbert can blame everyone else all he wants, but this crisis after the initial insult of Katrina is almost entirely his fault.” The only real national disgrace I’ve seen in New Orleans is the complete and total incompetence of the mayor, his staff, the governor of the State of Louisiana and her advisors and those on the looney left in America trying to assess blame on the Bush administration. I suggest that you find a mirror for that finger of blame!
It should be stunning how the wingtard trolls here have revealed themselves to be the uncivilized animals we’ve always suspected them to be, what with their rabid and desperate “blame the victim” talking points. But let’s show a little understanding here — for the last week they’ve been watching their Stalinist machine completely disintigrate before their eyes. They watched their “fearless leader”, in whom they’ve invested so much emotional if illusory hopes and dreams, be revealed on national television for the incompetent PR frontman that he is. That has to be quite the psychic shock for the fanatical, the delusional, and the weak-minded all.
IDGAF,
If 80% of the city had evacuated (as it did), how do you know that the bus drivers weren’t among them? Also, where would the buses have gone? Would they have just picked up the school kids they normally do? Do you have any concept of how difficult it would have been to draw up a plan to have all the qualified bus drivers in the city drive those buses around to the places they needed to go? Are the stupidest person on planet earth?
Even if you managed to find the drivers and give them a plan, those old yellow jungle cruisers are not exactly the most water-ready vehicles out there. Most of them probably would have just gotten stuck in the flood with everyone else. But what the hell does logic mean to you? You’re a fucking retard trying to defend ineptness because you can’t bear the fact that a president you’ve supported has become an embarrassment. Put aside your pride, and start caring about your damn country.
I forgot to add, they’ve also seen the completely predictable results of Republican policies and the modern conservative movement reacted to with shock and horror by those in America who are still civilized. That has to be a slap in the face.
Bush wanted to evacuate last Friday. He pleaded with Nagin and Blanco on Saturday. Nagin ordered the evacuation on Sunday. Had he done so a day earlier, LIKE THE PLAN READS, many would have been saved.
By the way, all those poor people who can’t drive didn’t appear by magic in the city of New Orleans on Monday morning. They’ve been there, the mayor knew it, and the mayor did nothing about it. Telling them all to walk to the Superdome is callous and and act of supreme indifference.
Again, are you all arguing that Bush should have declared an emergency and taken over city and state government? I don’t know how else to interpret your criticism of Bush in all this.
>This is democracy in action.
Looks like HA has laid SP to rest. Even the right wing radio stations like you more now.
Are we going to see ads for dating services and other sponsor ads on HA now that dominate SP?
Maureen Dowd,
“Mr. President, how much responsibility do you claim for levies intentionaly being destroyed in an effort to kill blacks?”
[Democrats..aren’t they a hoot?]
44 – What would you have Nagin do?
How about conjure virtual drivers for school buses on say the Friday (school bus drivers tend to have the weekend off) before the storm hit, at a time when no one knew the storm would hit NOLA.
They would park the buses on high ground (the original school bus parking lot I understand was under sea level) in a virtual parking lot where the virtual drivers would know for certain would not be affected by the hurricane at a point in time where they would not know the storm would hit NOLA.
Those virtual drivers would then sit tight and cross their fingers and hope that the hurricane, if it indeed got to them, would not kill them or wreck the buses.
Then when the storm was over, the virtual bus drivers would either drive the buses and save people affected by the storm assuming they could actually navigate the roads to where they were needed OR drive the buses back to their original parking lots if NOLA dodged the bullet.
In the worst case scenario, somehow these buses would also find fuel for multiple trips.
The virtual bus drivers would also need food and water to keep saving lives. Of course if a virtual bus driver expires, another can be “virtualized” to take his/her place.
ID(IOT)GAF:
We should really rely on your clear-headed professional judgement.
You have no ideological bias.
Janet @49 — “Bush wanted to evacuate last Friday. He pleaded with Nagin and Blanco on Saturday.”
HAHAHAHA…. oh gods, my spleen! And here all this time I thought you were being serious.
Bush wanted to evacuate last Friday. He pleaded with Nagin and Blanco on Saturday. Nagin ordered the evacuation on Sunday. Had he done so a day earlier, LIKE THE PLAN READS, many would have been saved.
The evacuation order went out on Sunday, but I don’t see anything describing that Bush had to plead with Nagin and Blanco. If you can post a link, it would help me determine if you’ve actually posted something factual for the first time.
By the way, all those poor people who can’t drive didn’t appear by magic in the city of New Orleans on Monday morning. They’ve been there, the mayor knew it, and the mayor did nothing about it. Telling them all to walk to the Superdome is callous and and act of supreme indifference.
What the hell was he supposed to do? Personally pick them up all in his car and drive them there? Holy crap, the illogic coming from you clowns is stunning.
Again, are you all arguing that Bush should have declared an emergency and taken over city and state government? I don’t know how else to interpret your criticism of Bush in all this.
No, we’re arguing that with the full resources available to him, and to FEMA, they should have been used to provide humanitarian assistance to the people stranded in the Superdome, the NOLA Conv. Center, and throughout the parishes of SE LA. There were tens of thousands of people who were without water and food for several days while FEMA was turning away assistance and failing to do even the basic things required of them in their own plan. There were obviously things that Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco could have done in hindsight, but no one failed as spectacularly as FEMA. It was a disgrace, but not as disgraceful as using partisanship to spin it as being something else.
To the him: As usual your comments illustrate your complete and total lack of even the slightest critical thinking skills and utter self imposed ignorance. You clearly wouldn’t have the sense to douse yourself with water (or piss on yourself)if you were on fire. 15,000 evacuees in the Superdome and you think 200 people who can drive is out of the question. You are so immersed in a fantasy world where reality is a concept you are completely unequipped and unprepared to deal with.
LOUISIANA HAS (well had …) 8,201 SCHOOL BUSES!
http://www.doe.state.la.us/lde/uploads/2253.pdf
324 of these were in Orleans Parish (New Orleans). Another 327 in adjacent Jefferson Parish.
In addition, I believe New Orleans had over 350 public transit buses. These buses all used fuel, not electricity.
So there were about 670 buses available just in New Orleans. At 60 people per bus, 40,000 people could have been evacuated in a single trip.
As for getting fuel for multiple trips, I believe there are certain establishments in Houston and other major cities called “gas stations”. Most of them also sell diesel fuel.
15,000 evacuees in the Superdome and you think 200 people who can drive is out of the question.
First of all, by the end of the week, there were 2-3 times that many people in the Superdome and about another 20,000 at the convention center. Even if you had managed to find that many people before the hurricane hit willing to risk their lives during the hurricane to drive the buses to the Superdome and convention center, it was likely that many of those buses would have gotten stuck when the floods hit. Having a bunch of people driving school buses through a hurricane is a STUPID FUCKING PLAN. Even my cat knows that.
Any mayor should have reasonably assumed that relying on the resources of the state and of FEMA was a better plan than doing something as risky as having a bunch of school buses driving through flood waters. No big city mayor expects to be left hanging the way Ray Nagin was.
You are so immersed in a fantasy world where reality is a concept you are completely unequipped and unprepared to deal with.
LOL! Nice, I guess Ray Nagin could’ve peddled around town in a canoe with insulin as well for all the diabetics trapped in their homes! What an incompetent fool!
Holy crap, you’re dumb.
Richard,
I expect things that stupid from people like IDGAF and Janet S, but from you? School buses are not the best vehicles for driving through flood waters. By trying to use the school buses, you would have just trapped a bunch of people in buses throughout the city. Sure, if we could have known exactly how everything would have transpired, we could have had all those buses waiting on I-10 with drivers ready, but you know full well that if there was no disaster, you and the other idiots on this board would be screaming about how it was a waste of taxpayer dollars.
I think we all need a tonic.
Here what I think will happen when the smoke clears.
1) New Orleans will get a new mayor hopefully one that knows how to read the Emergency Preparedness Plan. (I just did and it’s a wordy document..not much fun)
2) LA. will get a new Governor. Hopefully one that knows how to fill out red tape paperwork.
3) A certain FEMA director will lose his second job in 5 years. HE and HE alone will be the scapegoat for the Feds slow response to NOLA. (that’s why you hire cronies….to fall on the sword for you)
4) a certain president will not run for a third term. Yes you heard it here first. He will not run for a third term as your president.
5) the levies will be rebuilt to withstand a status 5 hurricane.
Money will be diverted from the Viaduct project to rebuild NOLA because the expense will be 5 times what it would have been had they done it in the 1990’s when it was suggested.
6) the Superdome will be imploded and a new superduperdome will take its place. It will have a retractable roof to let the winds cool down the stadium. this will help cool the people down in case this shit happens again.
7) last but not least we will all question the ingredients of any gumbo made in NOLA for a long time to come.
As for getting fuel for multiple trips, I believe there are certain establishments in Houston and other major cities called “gas stations”. Most of them also sell diesel fuel.
To be paid with virtual money. So let’s say the gas station owners are “nice” or the virtual bus drivers have credit cards issued to them.
Did anyone notice the long lines for gas/diesel in the region?
Yes it’s that 70’s show again!
LOUISIANA HAS (well had …) 8,201 SCHOOL BUSES!
I guess the Louisiana legislature needs to mandate that buses should be parked in places invulnerable to hurricanes and drivers need to be on call 24/7 – assuming the communications work.
This meme is dying hard. Can we call Katrina a case of Murphy’s Law on steroids?
Okay, idiots, on Sunday there were no flood waters! The buses had a clear shot to get people out of town. To where? I don’t know, maybe to where they are going a week later! I’m sure it is in the evacuation plans.
No bus drivers? How stupid of a comment is that? A couple of days ago the problem was no one knew where the keys to the buses were, because, afterall, it was Sunday! What, union rules forbid driving in an emergency on a Sunday?
If Nagin was overwhelmed, he should have told Blanco and had her bring in the feds immediately. They fiddled, while their city flooded.
Hey Him (you stupid, pathetic moron) Do you’re best to actually read the link to the City of NO’s disaster plan. Had even the simplest of pre-identified problems, plans and special needs issues been addressed according to their own plans, the busses would have bben out of the area prior to the flooding. One of the absolute FUCKING INCREDIBLY STUPID (along with Roger, Donna, DJ, Lucy et-all) here is is YOU. Denial is bliss in your little world isn’t it?
You are so immersed in a fantasy world where reality is a concept you are completely unequipped and unprepared to deal with.
Well, since you obviously consider yourself one of “history’s actors” who alters reality as he goes…
Maybe you’re right (pun intended).
TheHim @ 58
Please take a look at this satellite picture of New Orleans on 08/31/2005 (maximum height of flood waters was that day):
http://www.digitalglobe.com/im.....005_dg.jpg
The route out of New Orleans was not flooded. See the bridge over the Mississippi River in the bottom center? That is the Crescent City Connector. The Convention Center is on the left side of the river, directly above the bridge. A bunch of white shining roof. The exits from the bridge that serve the Convention Center are all dry.
The Superdome (you should be able to figure that one out) is surrounded by water. However, the exit to the right goes through an adjoining hotel and on to a city street that only had about a foot of water in it. It was used by buses to evacuate the Superdome.
Basically, Mayor Nagin let his entire bus fleet get swamped and unusable. And Governor Blanco didn’t have the administrative skills to requisition buses from neighboring school districts — at least not at first.
When the evacuation from the Superdome to the Astrodome finally commenced late Wednesday evening, they had to use buses that were sent over all the way from Houston.
Him says:First of all, by the end of the week, there were 2-3 times that many people in the Superdome and about another 20,000 at the convention center. Even if you had managed to find that many people before the hurricane hit willing to risk their lives during the hurricane to drive the buses to the Superdome and convention center, it was likely that many of those buses would have gotten stuck when the floods hit. Having a bunch of people driving school buses through a hurricane is a STUPID FUCKING PLAN. Even my cat knows that.
But an 18 year old get’s the job done!
http://www.newschannel5.tv/200.....-Astrodome
So much for your idiotic argument Einstein!
The real problem was that Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin didn’t really give a damn about the 134,000 people in New Orleans that lacked transportation to evacuate New Orleans in a hurricane. On July 24, 2005, the New Orleans Times-Picayune published a story that local officials acknowledged that these people would be SOL in the event of a major hurricane:
http://drudgereport.com/flash3kt.htm
As I have mentioned before, New Orleans had over 650 public buses available — 324 school buses and over 350 transit buses.
500 of these buses could have been used to move 30,000 people who lacked transportation completely out of the city prior to the hurricane. The other 150 (half of the public transit fleet) could have been used to move people to the Superdome — plus numerous other public buildings on higher ground near the river that would have also made excellent shelters. This would assume one one-way trip for the evacuation buses, and multiple round trips for the transit buses remaining in the city.
After the storm, all 650 plus buses could have been used to move 40,000 people out of the city in each series of trips.
But Blanco and Nagin didn’t really give a damn. Too bad, since these folks happened to be their political base. If all the poor people in New Orleans move to other states, the Democrats would be unable to win any close statewide elections in Louisiana. Unfortunately, the Democrat leadership in Louisiana only valued the poor people of New Orleans for their voting power, and didn’t otherwise give a damn about them.
the busses would have bben out of the area prior to the flooding.
Where? If the hurricane destroyed or damaged the buses at the place they were taken would you still have a problem?
I grant you that buses have a role to play but how do you know if this hadn’t been studied already and cut out due to the cost/benefit?
http://www.newschannel5.tv/200.....-Astrodome
And yet an 18 year old gets the job done that the HA morons are all saying it couldn’t be done.
As usual Him, nice argument Einstein!
But Blanco and Nagin didn’t really give a damn.
You’re not usually this stupid, Pope, but I gotta say here, you have no fucking clue what you’re talking about any more than Kayne West does when he says Bush doesn’t care about black people.
I’m all for figuring out who’s to blame over what everyone admits was a botched relief effort, but to act like you can read people’s minds is complete, utter bullshit.
http://www.newschannel5.tv/200.....-Astrodome
And yet an 18 year old gets the job done that you all seem to think (along with those responsible for executing the cities plan) was impossible!
http://www.newschannel5.tv/200.....-Astrodome
The real problem was that Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin didn’t really give a damn about the 134,000 people in New Orleans that lacked transportation to evacuate New Orleans in a hurricane.
Here we come to the heart of darkness of this meme inspired by none other than Drudge (we all know his sources). Way to go Richard. Nothing personal. It’s only politics.
So much for you HA morons arguments for it couldn’t be done!
And they knew in advance about the needs of 100,000 people who would need transportation if an evacution was declared! See page 10, part III of the City of NO’s Emergency Plan. Those responsible for what is also nicely outlined within this plan.
http://www.cityofno.com/portal.....8;tabid=26
What a shame they couldn’t even follow their own plan.
To prove Bush is racist, the states of MASS and CONN will take in ALL the New Orleans’ homeless, and relocate them to Cambridge, MASS, and Stamford, CONN. In addition, thousands of black homeless will be welcomed in East Hampton, NY. Democrats will feel very comfortable in these Democrat neighborhoods. [hehe]
I have no doubt that State and Local officials could have done better. That does not change the fact that FEMA is headed by an individual who is not qualified for the job. It does not change the fact that the Federal response was sluggish and ineffective.
While captian codpiece, chickenshit in chief is trying to figure out how to spin his way out of political ruin…
washingtonpost.com
Insurgents Seize Key Town in Iraq
Al Qaeda in Iraq’s Black Banner Flying From Rooftops
By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, September 5, 2005; 6:51 PM
BAGHDAD, Sept. 5 — Abu Musab Zarqawi’s foreign-led Al Qaeda in Iraq took open control of a key western town at the Syrian border, deploying its guerrilla fighters in the streets and flying Zarqawi’s black banner from rooftops, tribal leaders and other residents in the city and surrounding villages said.
A sign newly posted at the entrance of Qaim declared, “Welcome to the Islamic Kingdom of Qaim.” A statement posted in mosques described Qaim as an “Islamic kingdom liberated from the occupation.”
Zarqawi’s fighters were killing officials and civilians seen as government-allied or anti-Islamic, witnesses, residents and others said. On Sunday, the bullet-riddled body of a woman lay in a street of Qaim. A sign left on her corpse declared, “A prostitute who was punished.”
Zarqawi’s fighters had shot to death nine men in public executions in the city center since the weekend, accusing the men of being spies and collaborators for U.S. forces, said Sheikh Nawaf Mahallawi, a leader of a Sunni Arab tribe, the Albu Mahal, that had battled the foreign fighters.
Dozens of families were fleeing Qaim daily, Mahallawi said.
“It would be insane to attack Zarqawi’s people, even to shoot one bullet at them,” Mahallawi said. “We cannot attack them. But we will not stand still if they attack us. We hope the U.S. forces end this in the coming days. We want the city to go back to its normal situation.”
U.S. Marine spokesman Capt. Jeffrey Pool in Ramadi, capital of the western province that includes Qaim, said Marines in the area of Qaim had no word of any unusual activity in Qaim. Numerous Marines are stationed near the town, although Marines said they were not involved in recent ground fighting between pro-government tribal fighters and Zarqawi’s group.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....13_pf.html
The Bush Administration-When it absolutely, POSITIVELY has to be fucked up OVERNIGHT!
bluesky @ 18
‘…Wow, quoting The National Repuke. You are quite the scholar.’
That was one of my points about Krugman. You may as well quote MoveOn, as that is his main source.
captain codpiece, chickenshit-in-chief…man of action!
Is This A National Tipping Point?
posted September 4, 2005
The Sieur de Bienville, born Jean Baptiste Le Moyne, was an early
governor of Louisiana and was the founder of New Orleans. He laid out
a city that was destroyed by hurricanes in nearly every one of its
first four years of existence. One might have taken such events as an
indicator of problems to come. We talk of “natural disasters” but as
it has been said: “While nature provides hazards, it is man who
creates disasters.”
The arrogance of man in the face of natural realities is at the root
of many of his problems. We destroy forests leaving dessicated slash
and denuded hillsides behind and them watch television reports of
destructive wildfires and mudslides that have wiped out communities.
We build resorts and huge population centers on idyllic beaches which
lie alongside fault zones then watch as earthquakes and tsunamis lay
them waste. We allow technology to give us the gifts of plastic
convenience and chemical miracles then read newspaper reports of
rivers catching fire and populations racked by leukemia from drinking
contaminated waters. We sit idly by while politicians ignore a
preponderance of good science and turn away from international efforts to address concerns of global climate change then watch the effects of such selfishness and idiocy as the results are writ on our TV screens in destruction brought by the super-storms those same scientists predicted. We restore ideologues to power even after they embroil our nation in needless conflicts, sully our national honor, kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people and undermine our very foundations of law and economic security.
There are many people engaged in Monday morning quarterbacking on the New Orleans disaster – some even displaying the height of callousness by blithely blaming the victims for staying while ignoring that it was their abject poverty which made them unable to escape the storm. Will our Republican government rescue them, or quickly move to bail out the insurance industry? We’ll see.
As veteran newsman Bob Shieffer said on CBS Sunday Morning, Katrina
hit us while Washington was still in a “vacation stupor” and many of
the politicians who should have been at work bringing the nation’s
resources to bear on the problem were too busy attending fundraisers
to focus on their responsibilities.
And, forget Osama bin Laden, just where the dickens is Dick Cheney?
Well, there are some facts about the run-up to this disaster that no
amount of spin will ever erase. Over years and years, the precarious
state of New Orleans has been known. Engineers laid out the needs and an economic decision was made to build levees that would protect the city from 99.5% of expected storm events. The savings have been wiped out by an event in that fateful 0.5%. Unbridled, poorly planned development, filling of wetlands, diversion of levee maintenance funds
into warmaking, socio-economic policies that have created a burgeoning underclass with little hope for a “good life,” – all hallmarks of Reagan and Bush administration policies, are now before the world in the contorted faces of people with no possessions but flood-soaked clothes cradling dehydrated babies and comforting dying grandmothers. The world is shocked, as we all should be. But will we do anything about it?
Domestic television showed Bush visiting the coast to comfort the
people of Biloxi – even hugging some seemingly dazed survivors.
German TV, however, filed a much different report. ZDF news reporter
Christine Adelhardt reported the president’s visit to be a completely
staged event. Their crew witnessed how the open-air food distribution
point Bush visited in front of the cameras was hastily set up for his
photo-op and then torn down immediately after he and the herd of “news people” had left. And those women Bush hugged for the camera were not even Biloxi locals. Some have even speculated that they were looters who were just individuals wandering in the area that were quickly recruited as props for Bush’s faux compassion photo-op. And as we watched the CNN video of loaders and dozers seemingly hard at work to repair the 17th Street levee where Bush was visiting, he told us and the world that progress was flowing – but according to Senator Mary Landrieu, the crew that was working so hard yesterday left and has never come back.
It looks like he was lying to us – again.
This event has shown the world the America that greed has built. A
superpower in name only. A Goliath struck in the eye by a meteorological David. A nation that preaches peace, democracy and prosperity for all but lately has nothing to show for itself but violence wed with selfishness, iron-fistedness and a failed manifest
destiny.
The real work to come goes far beyond repairing storm damage. We must repair our democracy. We must restore our national respectability. We must demand the impeachment of this president and root out his many minions before their collective destructiveness completely lays waste our beloved nation. Bush says the coast will be rebuilt bigger and better than before. I wonder if he is talking of million-dollar beach houses whose owners didn’t get their feet wet, or those who are still, today trapped in their stifling attics, yearning to breathe free.
Bruce Wilkey
Signal Mountain
bwilkey@bellsouth.net
Political ruin Rujax? Only in your fantasy world. Perhaps you’ve decided to ignore the polls showing America isn’t buying your argument anymore than they did mother Sheehans! But I do thank you for pointing out yet once again why we need to stay in Iraq. (Unless you’re a pathetic, spineless, anti-American pacifist coward which in the dictionary, we find your picture)
68
It takes more than one bus to evacuate 140,000 people and lot of things to go right to incorporate a fleet of municipal buses in an evac plan for a place like NOLA.
I’m happy that kid found a working bus but there’s no way to guarantee buses will be available in an area hit with that size of storm – period!
But what do I know? I’m just an IT guy who knows a little bit about Murphy’s Law. Richard Pope is a lawyer, he obviously knows a lot more.
This bus meme is the crap that is sticking to the wall the best.
You really know where that compassion comes from:
Barbara Bush: Things Working Out “Very Well” for Poor Evacuees from New Orleans
By E&P Staff
Published: September 05, 2005 7:25 PM ET updated 8:00 PM
NEW YORK Accompanying her husband, former President George H.W.Bush, on a tour of hurricane relief centers in Houston, Barbara Bush said today, referring to the poor who had lost everything back home and evacuated, “This is working very well for them.”
The former First Lady’s remarks were aired this evening on National Public Radio’s “Marketplace” program.
She was part of a group in Houston today at the Astrodome that included her husband and former President Bill Clinton, who were chosen by her son, the current president, to head fundraising efforts for the recovery. Sen. Hilary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama were also present.
In a segment at the top of the show on the surge of evacuees to the Texas city, Barbara Bush said: “Almost everyone I’ve talked to says we’re going to move to Houston.”
Then she added: “What I’m hearing is they all want to stay 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.”
——————————————————————————–
E&P Staff (letters@editorandpublisher.com)
KING 5 POLL SHOWS TIGHT RACE BETWEEN SIMS, IRONS
Last fall King 5’s survey showing a 50-50 tie between Gregoire and Rossi was dead-on accurate. Two weeks before the primary, the same poll has Sims at 49%, Irons at 41%, and 10% undecided. Irons leads among older voters, while Sims has a healthy lead among the 18-34 crowd (but turnout traditionally is less among younger voters). Could spell trouble for Ron Sims in November.
Considering the hysteria enveloping the editorial pages of the NYT due to hurricane Katrina, what have they had to say on natural disasters in the past, via Lexis-Nexis:
Remember the 1993 floods in the midwest, the NYT editorialized on 14 July 1993:
For the longer term, Washington and flood-prone areas must reconsider the pro’s and con’s of flood control projects and flood insurance.
The billions of Federal dollars spent to construct dams and levees have doubtless prevented billions of dollars of damage to the areas they serve. But a dam or a levee in one place creates problems somewhere else. Also, by offering protection, they encourage people to live and work and develop farming in flood plains that are inherently risky.
Budget constraints and environmental concerns have slowed new flood control projects in recent years. Congress should resist pressure to spend more now because of this year’s floods; these projects need closer evaluation than they’ve gotten in the past.
Likewise flood insurance. Less than 20 percent of those eligible for federally subsidized flood insurance buy it — because they can’t afford it, or think they’re not at risk, or figure aid will be forthcoming anyhow if disaster strikes. Before the rivers rose this year, there was a move in Congress to expand flood insurance coverage, either by regulation or incentives, rather than have taxpayers at large foot the bill through direct aid. But flood insurance can encourage reckless development.
Flood plains are risky territory, as the Mississippi and its tributaries are proving again. Federal policy needs to control the risk, not just the rivers.
The 1997 Floods in North Dakota, 24 April 1997:
There will be time in the months ahead to assess whether something more might have been done to make the flood predictions more accurate so that official planning could have fashioned more effective defenses.
On making flood control projects more complicated and costly, praise on 9 May 1997:
In the last session of Congress, a small band of Republican moderates organized by Representative Sherwood Boehlert of New York succeeded in blocking nearly every attempt by their right-wing colleagues to gut the country’s basic environmental statutes.
Fortunately, Mr. Boehlert and his friends are still wide awake. On Wednesday, in the first major environmental battle of the new Congress, the moderates and like-minded Democrats beat back a bill that would have permanently exempted any flood control project from the requirements of the Endangered Species Act.
While now currently in love with the Army Corps of Engineers, how did the NYT editorialize the Corps techniques in the past, 28 April 2001:
The famous Wilkes-Barre flood of 1972 and the Mississippi River flood of 1993 led to fierce criticism of the Army Corps of Engineers, whose traditional methods of flood control were found to have made matters much worse than they might have been. But the Corps has never abandoned its blind faith in dams and levees that, when overused, constrict the river’s natural flow, invite overbuilding and end up doing more harm than good.
And back where we started with midwestern floods, this time in 2001, 25 April 2001:
No one welcomes a flood. No one wants to do away with flood prevention. But it is no surrender to recognize, as many Midwesterners have done, that there is something profoundly elemental in the spring rising of the Mississippi and its tributaries, an adherence to a law that is still greater than almost anything the Army Corps of Engineers can throw in its way. The Mississippi is powerful enough on an ordinary summer’s day. But to see it in spring, overflowing into Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois, is to witness one of the inarguable boundaries to human existence. The river lends out its flood plain wordlessly and takes it back without argument.
Is there something profoundly elemental in the summer/fall rising of hurricanes as well?
And this NYT editorial on 24 June 2003:
The House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure has a rare opportunity tomorrow to strike a blow for both fiscal sanity and the environment. Before the committee is a bill that would bring a measure of discipline and independent oversight to the Army Corps of Engineers, an incorrigibly spendthrift agency whose projects over the years have caused enormous damage to the nation’s streams, rivers and wetlands.
And this one from 13 April 2005:
Anyone who cares about responsible budgeting and the health of America’s rivers and wetlands should pay attention to a bill now before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. The bill would shovel $17 billion at the Army Corps of Engineers for flood control and other water-related projects — this at a time when President Bush is asking for major cuts in other important domestic programs. Among these projects is a $2.7 billion boondoggle on the Mississippi River that has twice flunked inspection by the National Academy of Sciences.
The Government Accountability Office and other watchdogs accuse the corps of routinely inflating the economic benefits of its projects. And environmentalists blame it for turning free-flowing rivers into lifeless canals and destroying millions of acres of wetlands — usually in the name of flood control and navigation but mostly to satisfy Congress’s appetite for pork.
This is a bad piece of legislation.
Things to remember while the NYT and the left wing lunatics histrionically bleats the opposite now.
“Here’s another photo of a black man with the caption: ‘A young man walks through chest-deep water after looting a grocery store…’”
http://www.komotv.com/kenschram/story.asp?ID=38901
Hmmm … you ask if RACE had anything to do with how the RIGHT WING MEDIA portrayed the looting … ?
Did anybody see the story in the Seattle Times on Sunday about the two pictures and their captions. For the picture of the two white people, the photographer saw them pick up the food as it was floating by. According to the photographer, they did find it.
For the other picture, the photographer saw the man go into a store and come out with the food. Things like these can be used to inflame. Especially when people jump to conclusions before knowing the facts. (at least those facts printed in the Times)
rwb @ 16
‘Nobody’s happy about people dying. We are, however, encouraged…’
I did not say HAs were happy about people dying. I said that you were more than happy about wanting to blame GW and co., and that you could not wait until the dead have been buried to express that joy. It’s all in the timing.
Sen. Landrieu Threatens to ‘Punch’ President if He Keeps Hitting Local Response to Katrina
By E&P Staff
Published: September 04, 2005 5:40 PM ET
NEW YORK Senator Mary Landrieu, the Democrat of Louisiana (whose father was a mayor of New Orleans), appears to have finally found her voice after offering only cautious criticism of the federal relief effort in the hurriance catastrophe earlier in the week. Today she promised to literally “punch” anyone, “including the president,” who contnued to question the local response to the tragedy, considering the gross federal misconduct.
Appearing on ABC’s “The Week” TV program this morning, Senator Landrieu still appeared to be smarting from President Bush’s comments, during his national radio address, that state and local bore a fair share of blame for the slow response. On a copter tour of the area, Landrieu said that if she heard any more criticism from federal officials, particularly about the evacuation of New Orleans, she might lose control.
“If one person criticizes them or says one more thing – including the president of the United States – he will hear from me,” she said on the ABC program. “One more word about it after this show airs and I might likely have to punch him. Literally.”
She burst into tears as she looked at a broken levee. “The President could have funded it,” she said. “He cut it out of the budget. Is that the most pitiful sight you have ever seen in your life? One little crane.”
She also referred angrily to comments Bush had made Friday at the New Orleans airport about the fun he had in her city in his younger days.
“Our infrastructure is devastated, lives have been shattered,” Landrieu said. “Would the president please stop taking photo-ops?”
——————————————————————————–
E&P Staff (letters@editorandpublisher.com
The Bush Administration-When it absolutely, POSITIVELY has to be fucked up OVERNIGHT!
I said that you were more than happy about wanting to blame GW and co., and that you could not wait until the dead have been buried to express that joy. It’s all in the timing.
Bullshit, nowonder. Where was the outrage when your troll buddies who were jumping for joy over Rehnquist’s death within moments of the announcement?
Great. I just pulled an ASS on the italics. Oh well. Sorry.
September 5, 2005
Killed by Contempt
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Each day since Katrina brings more evidence of the lethal ineptitude of federal officials. I’m not letting state and local officials off the hook, but federal officials had access to resources that could have made all the difference, but were never mobilized.
Here’s one of many examples: The Chicago Tribune reports that the U.S.S. Bataan, equipped with six operating rooms, hundreds of hospital beds and the ability to produce 100,000 gallons of fresh water a day, has been sitting off the Gulf Coast since last Monday – without patients.
Experts say that the first 72 hours after a natural disaster are the crucial window during which prompt action can save many lives. Yet action after Katrina was anything but prompt. Newsweek reports that a “strange paralysis” set in among Bush administration officials, who debated lines of authority while thousands died.
What caused that paralysis? President Bush certainly failed his test. After 9/11, all the country really needed from him was a speech. This time it needed action – and he didn’t deliver.
But the federal government’s lethal ineptitude wasn’t just a consequence of Mr. Bush’s personal inadequacy; it was a consequence of ideological hostility to the very idea of using government to serve the public good. For 25 years the right has been denigrating the public sector, telling us that government is always the problem, not the solution. Why should we be surprised that when we needed a government solution, it wasn’t forthcoming?
Please see:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09.....nted=print
****************************************************************
The Bush Administration-When it absolutely, POSITIVELY has to be fucked up OVERNIGHT!
Uhhh…..folks, can we stop the wholesale cut ‘n paste? Links would be nice.
For my $.02 at this point, I’ll quote (again) from yesterday’s Washington Post article on FEMA’s mistakes:
“Other federal and state officials pointed to Louisiana’s failure to measure up to national disaster response standards, noting that the federal plan advises state and local emergency managers not to expect federal aid for 72 to 96 hours, and base their own preparedness efforts on the need to be self-sufficient for at least that period.”
So, my questions from that is:
1. Did the state and local plan take this into account?
2. What provisions (if any) are made (or supposed to be) in the state or federal plan for the total collapse of local resources?
3. Will we accept the invoking of the Insurrection Act (not done since the Civil War) (or some new legislation) for a President to truly “federalize” disasters? Currently, the Constitution makes the state the “lead” agency in a disaster.
3. If 72-96 hours are not acceptable, what do we need to do to reduce response time, and we willing to accept not just the increased cost but the increased power that the feds will have to assume?
You Reps shouldn’t get too comfortable. The shit has only begun to hit the fan. It’s about competence and caring. You don’t care about your fellow man. And you claim to be faith based. The only faith you have is that if you give rich people more money somehow thaty helps you. No matter how many times it doesn’t work, you keep doing it over and over. We can’t afford you anymore…
@79
With the city under water and people dying of thirst and hunger, is there any fucking difference whether it comes floating by, or is sitting on a shelf in a ruined store?
It’s all private property. If you knew a damn thing about law, you would know that “found” property (i.e., a case of canned goods floating with the current down the street) still belongs to its original owner, and is not yours for the taking. If a sack of money falls out of an armored truck and you take it home instead of turning it in, you go to jail for theft!
My point is, in terms of the law, there isn’t a damn bit of difference between the white guy who found floating food and the black guy who found shelf food. You bet your ass the media showed a racial bias in portraying them.
IDGAF: Start linking…or everyone will know your name is Terry. (too late)
You should change your name to TDGAF.
Careful….this is the same logic Stefan constantly uses at his website.
@80
“I did not say HAs were happy about people dying. I said that you were more than happy about wanting to blame GW and co. …”
So what? BIG FUCKING SO WHAT?!! You loudmouthed wingnut trolls have been blaming liberals for everything under the sun for as long as anyone can remember — and you’re blathering about fingerpointing and blame games? You scumbags invented it!!! GO FUCK YOURSELF!!! Hypocrite …
Hurricane Center Director Tells Paper He Briefed Brown and Chertoff on Danger of Severe Flooding
By E&P Staff
Published: September 04, 2005 6:55 PM ET
NEW YORK Dr. Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center, told the Times-Picayune Sunday afternoon that officials with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Homeland Security, including FEMA Director Mike Brown and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, listened in on electronic briefings given by his staff in advance of Hurricane Katrina slamming Louisiana and Mississippi–and were advised of the storm’s potential deadly effects.
“Mayfield said the strength of the storm and the potential disaster it could bring were made clear during both the briefings and in formal advisories, which warned of a storm surge capable of overtopping levees in New Orleans and winds strong enough to blow out windows of high-rise buildings,” the paper reported. “He said the briefings included information on expected wind speed, storm surge, rainfall and the potential for tornados to accompany the storm as it came ashore.
“The Bush Administration-When it absolutely, POSITIVELY has to be fucked up OVERNIGHT!”
88..RR, Er, 42 inch plasma Sony TV’s were not “floating by”. Nor were $200 Michael Jordan sneakers from Foot Locker. Kill the looters and reduce the number of Democrat votes in 2008.
Financial Times
September 3, 2005
Bush’s policies have crippled disaster response capabilities
By Edward Alden
….For the past quarter century in Washington, since the Republican Ronald Reagan rode a conservative backlash all the way to the presidency, US politics has been dominated by the conviction that what was wrong with America would be solved by getting government off the people’s backs.
In Washington, the Republican orthodoxy that reigns at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue has dictated that taxes can go down but never up. Federal tax revenues as a percentage of the economy have dropped to the lowest levels since the early 1950s….
But that is little comfort to the tens of thousands stranded in primitive conditions in New Orleans who are begging for government help, and will face months and years of rebuilding their lives even after it comes.
There are at least three reasons why the hurricane may mark a turning point in the US debate over the role of government. First, the deep tax cuts enacted in 2001 – which President George W. Bush now wants extended permanently – left no room for government initiatives that might have prevented the catastrophe and increased capacity to respond.
The Louisiana Army Corps of Engineers had identified some $18bn (£9.8bn) in projects to shore up the levees and improve flood control in New Orleans after last year’s vicious hurricane season. Despite warnings from local emergency officials that New Orleans would face disastrous flooding even with a category 3 hurricane (Katrina landed as a category 4), none of those projects was funded. Instead, Army Corps funds in the region have fallen by nearly half since 2001, and the Bush administration has proposed a further 20 per cent cut next year. Hurricane prevention was among dozens of domestic programmes that have been chronically underfunded as taxes have fallen and scarce revenues have been diverted to the war on terrorism.
http://americablog.blogspot.co.....-have.html
“The Bush Administration-When it absolutely, POSITIVELY has to be fucked up OVERNIGHT!”
@85
You’re missing the goddamn point, Jon! Entirely! REGARDLESS of what state and/or local governments did or did not do, Bush …
Cut funding for levees
Gutted FEMA’s emergency capabilities
Appointed an unqualified individual to run FEMA
Refused offers of aid from other cities, states, and countries
Did not take action for several days
Does not hold his appointees accountable for failure
Instead of taking responsibility, shifts blame
That isn’t presidential leadership, it’s malfeasance
Whatever the Fuck you’re *dgaf is:
Bush is toast. The corrupt conservative movement is dead.
Three cheers for the return of the REAL America!
Jon, you’re nothing but a mindless, shameless, and clueless apologist for a miserable failure of a president!
Worst.President.Ever
“Mr. Brown had no obvious qualifications…”
Oh! You mean like Sandy Berger.
Email me if you need to know who Sandy Berger is.
Good for you Jon. Unlike most here, it doesn’t bother me in the least that you know my name. I am not a coward.
Like my nick says, I Dont Give A Fuck
Yeah, we all knew that, Terry.
“That isn’t presidential leadership, it’s malfeasance”
The mission statement of the division at DSHS where the cerebral giant Roger worked.
“Bush is toast. The corrupt conservative movement is dead.
Three cheers for the return of the REAL America!”
Rujax is having another LSD flashback! Oh wait a minute, he said that back during the Plame brew-haha. Like I said, reality must be a real bitch for you isn’t it. Do you stay sober long enough to cash that “benefits” check pal?
RE 96: …..and Mr. Cynical sucks!!!!
All right, let the applause begin, I’m done ruffling your feathers for today. You guys are pure entertainment and yet more proof that 2008 will be yet another resounding “progressive” loss at the polls. Unless you consider that big 2-3% How-Wierd Dean got as a victory. Have a good evening!
re 104: Try that “pal” shit with me and you’ll be looking for your tooth fragments. Where’s your face you cowardly piece of shit. We already invited you and your ilk to show up and try to stop us from burning our own flag. No takers.
99
I have got a pair of Sandy Berger socks and they suck. They wont stay up.
However they are perfect for sneaking in beers at the Husky game.
Roger: No offense, but you act EXACTLY like the people you hate. Were my questions so unreasonable? Are we not allowed to ask where the local and state governments failed, IN ADDITION TO the federal government?
As far as your other points:
“Cut funding for levees”
Yes, but the president doesn’t write the damn budget. Congress does, levee funding was decreased in Clinton’s budgets, some of the collapses occured in levees that were FULLY FUNDED, and the levees were not designed to handle more than a Category 3 hurricane. Go look it up yourself, don’t rely on opinion.
“Gutted FEMA’s emergency capabilities”
The problem was is that FEMA’s focus wasn’t gutted as so much changed to terrorism, which, I freely admit, was a major mistake, which I’ve said before.
“Appointed an unqualified individual to run FEMA”
True, such jobs should go to qualified people, another major mistake. But Brown’s lack of qualifications didn’t come up in his two confirmation hearings. Where was the loyal opposition? Second, nobody seemed to complain about Brown in the last four hurricanes to hit Florida.
“Refused offers of aid from other cities, states, and countries”
That was FEMA’s screw-up, not the President’s personally, but he still has to take responsibility.
“Did not take action for several days”
That is simply not true. He personally called Governor Blanco and asked for a mandtory evacuation of NO. Troops and supplies were prepositioned. The problem came getting those supplies to the folks who needed ’em.
“Does not hold his appointees accountable for failure”
Well, I freely admit this one, especially George Tenet.
“Instead of taking responsibility, shifts blame”
Again, not true. He’s been trying to get Louisiana to federalize the National Guard to eliminate some of the red tape, thereby making him responsible.
I enjoy the dialogue, but you cannot and will not accept that your point of view or your side is not perfect, all the while decrying the other side as being hypocritical and not able to accept any blame. I don’t understand it.
Roger: No offense, but you act EXACTLY like the people you hate. Were my questions so unreasonable? Are we not allowed to ask where the local and state governments failed, IN ADDITION TO the federal government?
Actually, Jon, just for clarification, the people we hate are snobs who say things like this:
NEW YORK Accompanying her husband, former President George H.W.Bush, on a tour of hurricane relief centers in Houston, Barbara Bush said today, referring to the poor who had lost everything back home and evacuated, “This is working very well for them.”
…
In a segment at the top of the show on the surge of evacuees to the Texas city, Barbara Bush said: “Almost everyone I’ve talked to wants to move to Houston.”
Then she added: “What I’m hearing is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed with the hospitality.
“And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this (she chuckled)–this is working very well for them.”
Sure they’re homeless, lost everything including relatives, have had their families split apart and spent the last week living in their own shit without a bite to eat but it’s working well for them!
LiberalDave @ 112: That was a pretty stupid thing for B. Bush to say. Thought she’d have more sense.
By the way, I wasn’t trying to contradict what you said to RR. Just to show you that there really are people we have problems with and that’s an example of why.
lucy@105–
You meanie….you know I don’t suck.
At least I don’t suck anything on your skanky body!
Roger Rabbit @ 92
‘…you’re blathering about fingerpointing and blame games?’
You need to read to the end of my sentence –
‘…and that you could not wait until the dead have been buried to express that joy. It’s all in the timing.’
My only point was in how morbid the timing is. Blame all you want, and please do not wait until they pluck the dead from the water. It would shock too many people.
After watching with horror of how my government was responding to the basic needs of the innocent victims of this disaster and knowing that Brown had no credentials to head FEMA, as well as Brown’s less than candid statement that IAHA, was ‘an international subsidiary of the USOC,’ I let Goldy know my opinion of Brown’s tenure at IAHA. I never had any personal dealings with Brown while he was at IAHA, only what I observed, heard and read at the time. It’s still a free country. While I don’t agree with Goldy on everything, (I’m a moderate) I like him, and for some reason thought he too would be outraged at what was going on in the gulf.
I’m fairly sure I know which side of the political ideology won’t have the desire, the patience or the fortitude to actually read this whole thing, but I’m confident in Cynical, Janet, Rufus, IDGAF, Righton and the other right thinking folks who spend their time trying to elevate this site. It is the single, most powerful essay on strenths, weaknesses and difference between the two I’ve read in a very long time and it needs to be spread around.
TRIBES, The Pink Tribe and the Grey Tribe, The Sheep, The Wolves and The Sheepdogs
Cynical: Mr Loocy is a man. There is no skanky body. He likes being called effeminate names.
This is interesting. July 24th 2005, the mayor of NO says to potential flood victims you are on your own:
rawstory.com/news/2005/July_2005_article_reveals_Red_Cross_told_poor_Youre_on_your_o_0902.html
Now he complains and cries the blues. At east the blues are/were in NO!!!
he other right thinking folks who spend their time trying to elevate this site.
It’s really hard to tell if this is meant as ironic comedy or if you’re so deluded and full of yourself (which is actually more likely) that you really believe it. For starters, people honestly trying to elevate the debate or discussions don’t sign off every post they write with an insult to the other side. ASS.
If you ever plan on being more than simply iconic for everything people despise about the ideology you say you promote, it would do you well to work on gaining some respect from the rest of us instead of assuming you deserve it. You don’t, and it never come free.
It will never come free, rather.
how can you be proud
good one. very thoughtful.
I must admit to noticing a PJ o”rourke line (or like his lines) about the flood, and how Ted Kennedy surely knows a thing or two about rising water. Not the point of the article but funny none the less
Rabbit and others wouldn’t dare read something out of the playbook
If you ever plan on being more than simply iconic for everything people despise about the ideology you say you promote, it would do you well to work on gaining some respect from the rest of us instead of assuming you deserve it. You don’t, and it never come free. -Comment by LiberalDave— 9/5/05 @ 8:56 pm
The fatal error your making Dave, is that I neither need nor desire the respect of ‘your’ side, only that of those whom I respect.
I have no doubt that the DNC will insure that the Democrat votes coming out of “ghost town” New Orleans exceeds the number of votes cast in 2004. Democrats: masters of voter fraud.
@103
I wasn’t POTUS or running FEMA, dolt! I didn’t kill 10,000 people by screwing up! I DIDN’T SCREW UP!!!
106
Don’t let the door hit your ass on your way out.
The fatal error your making Dave, is that I neither need nor desire the respect of ‘your’ side, only that of those whom I respect.
Well, you – and the rest of your troll gang – can’t much further your beliefs without it. So essentially your only purpose is to be an ASS.
Pathetic.
@111
“Roger: No offense, but you act EXACTLY like the people you hate.”
Oh, you noticed that?? You see that Roger Rabbit behaves EXACTLY like the hateful wingnuts!! Yes, how does that castor oil go down? Taste good? I certainly hope so!!! Have some more, it’s good for you, makes you shit …
btw, I don’t hate anybody, Jon. I only hate what they do. I hate their bullshit. I hate their ignorance. I hate their hating. In fact, I can’t think of anything I like about wingnuts. But I don’t hate them. There’s nothing wrong with wingnuts that a can of Raid can’t fix …
@117
Hmmm … how long did you guys wait before you started blaming 9/11 on Clinton? 10 minutes? No, I don’t think it was that long. Hypocrite.
Roger Wabbit: For starters read my post above. The mayor tells his people they are on their own on July 24th 2005 for any floods, etc. He has no plan. So the first level of blame goes to Nagin. The next level goes to Balnco who will not cede control of the LA NG to the feds like Miss & Ala. Oh well she be dumb. The next level is the FEMA gang. So who loses/wins in the blame game: Nagin. Does your little rabbit sized pea brain understand? You claim to be lawyer. Someone asked about your number, you obfuscate similar to Loocy. So do you understand logic or the rabbit needs some carrots first?
Hey Goldy, the Mike Brown/IAHA story made it to Keith Olbermann’s Countdown.
Goldy – Congrats, I just watched the Mike Brown story on MSNBC. Great job!
Congrats on the story Goldy. Just watched it on MSNBC.
FuddyDuddy @ 130 You still just don’t get it. We are not talking about state and local officials here. We are talking about FEMA. We can talk about the state and local officials at any time and any place of your chosing. But will you not agree that Brown had NO credentials to be running FEMA? And will you not further agree that the Bushy is in charge of the government response to the disaster? Yes or no?
PJ O’Rourke used to be funny until the Irish whiskey took an inordinate amount of brain cells and an already fragile personality structure clung desperately to conservative dogma in order to maintain a semblance of his former fat and sassy liberal self. When Lee Atwater died of brain cancer denouncing his own weasely political machinations for the right , he finally admitted that the true high point of his life was playing guitar for Percy Sledge’s band as Percy sang, “When a Man Loves a Woman.” True to his deathbed conversion to liberalism , Atwater denounced the Republican “Southern Strategy” as the blatent appeal to white Southern rracists that it remains to this very day. No black person with any honor would belong to the Republican Party—-the party of RIGHT WING WHITE RELIGEOUS RACISM. Lee Atwater saw the light before his own light died. Will you, PJ O’Rourke? And will you, Mr. Cynical, ever stop sucking? Alas, no……
‘NUFF SAID!!!!
DRIBBLYPUD
Proud@119–
Wow….what an amazing, from the head & heart essay. The LEFTIST PINHEADS (aka LENIN’S USEFUL IDIOTS) could not possibly comprehend the TRIBES angle…..yet they are constantly trying to define and pit TRIBES against each other based on race, sex, sexual preference and other strawmen.
Thanks–
You know the shit is getting too deep when white liberal whores like Lucy start pulling the race card. Peace out.
Wabbit, I do get it. You like to blame. So I said let’s correctly blame. Following the thread. When has any lefty followed a thread heading? But since you asked, I don’t know about Mike Brown, but if the evidence so far is true, he may be over his head.
Mr Loocy STFU. Do you wear a bra and panties too? I think the panties are giving you a wedgie on your balls Loocy! The brain just ain’t working. You can’t come up with your own moniker? You can copy mine.
NUFF SAID!!!
So the free lunch wagon arrived 20 minutes late, big deal. When will you libs take responsibility for your own well being. If New Orleans had maintained thier dikes or thier emergency services, they wouldn’t have to whine about federal aid not providing thier free lunch fast enough
Richard @ 22, You have given me some hope that the right wingers (of where I previously placed you) can and will start to open their own eyes and see the damage that the neocons and the current administration have done, are doing and will continue to do to this GREAT NATION as long as they hold all branches of government. I commend you on your writings the past 4 days. Thank you….
Dave, what you don’t get, what you will never get, is that folks like me don’t need to gain our self esteem from outside sources. We don’t judge our worth by what others think, nor do we care what others think and we don’t have to take a poll about if or how much others like us to see how our day will shape up. You can’t elevate our worth nor can you demean it because you simply aren’t that important and the only thing of consequence is what we see when we look inside ourselves.
Ass @ 140 – “…because you simply aren’t that important”
Trust me, we have always known that the RepubliCons believe no one is important but themselves…
We will simply wait and see what the Katrina Commission has to say, and whether we can get up an impeachment for your Chimpanzee in Chief.
Gary, it doesn’t matter. A lefty liberal can fuck up so badly and you will never hear an asses horse say anything critical nowhere no how. You know the game Tom Clancy’s Sylinter Cell 2? The commercial says as the enemy evolves so must we. Well the enemy is the Loocys’ & his ilk, Wabbit and his “brood”, dondon and his friends, etc. They call us the Nazis, Fascists, America haters, yet it’s their friends who beat up soldiers in Seattle, call them baby killers in Iraq, need I say more. Who hates America? Liberal Moonbat Donks.
Gary @ 138, if YOUR stupid non-elected president wouldn’t have cut all of the previously passed budget for the works on the dykes in NO their would probably not have been a problem. Place the blame in the proper place my neonut frient, on your imbecilic, self centered, war mongering Gross Outdated Party and their bed mates, the NeoCon fanatics
Gary, There is a lot of the infastructure in this country that is the responsibility of the Federal government, and we pay for it. Federal funding for dike repair as well as the army corp to do the repairs were cut in 2003 and diverted to Iraq. FEMA stands for federal emergency management assistance, for disasters such as this that no local departments are capable of handling, and again we pay for it. It’s no free lunch, we have paid for it and deserve the best.
want to know for which public school lucy is the wrestling coach he/she/it claims to be. As a family closely associated with the wrestling program in our league, I want to make sure that he/she/it has absolutely no contact with our children.
I suspect it’s the S King county public school that had to suspend most of it’s wrestlers last year for breaking, entering and stealing from another team in it’s own school. I suspect it’s that particular school further because they are known league and tournament wide as dirty wrestlers, cheats, mat crawlers and whiners… all of which would be learned at the knees of their COACH. -Comment by HowCanYouBePROUDtobeAnASS— 9/5/05 @ 2:01 pm
I’m still waiting, headless lucy/ballsless loony – time to step up to the plate brave boy/girl/thing and announce your team. Tell us, how much time does it take to teach your wrestlers to be mat crawlers looking for that out of bound line like an illegal immigrant looking for a whole in the border? Wouldn’t your time be a little better spent actually teaching them to wrestle instead of whine? Wasn’t it one of your punks that was ejected from league championship competition for biting his opponent a year or 2 ago? Be the man you claim (wish) to be, coach
Ass @ 145 – typical Bushco tactics. When you are losing the argument on its merits, attack the person…
Michelle Malkin is calling for Mike Brown to be fired. Why does Michelle Malkin hate America?
Ass @ 145 And that is because you KNOW we are right. You know bush screwed up by appointing Brown. I know you know this, yet you can’t admit it. Come on, be a man. Admit you are wrong.
Alas, I wait in vain for a sensible answer from Ass and his pals. Guess I will hit the rack. I smell an impeachment pie baking…
Apparently, the USS Bataan was in the Gulf of Mexico all week and was never utilized. I guess that was Ray Nagin’s fault as well.
Fidel Castro, Hillary Clinton, and Jesse Jackson all believe Bush hates blacks. Classic! Democrats are truely a hoot!
Ass @ 145 – typical Bushco tactics. When you are losing the argument on its merits, attack the person… -Comment by fire_one— 9/5/05 @ 10:19 pm
Ass @ 145 And that is because you KNOW we are right. You know bush screwed up by appointing Brown. I know you know this, yet you can’t admit it. Come on, be a man. Admit you are wrong. -Comment by fire_one— 9/5/05 @ 10:21 pm
Talking to and/or about yourself, dimwit? Sure does look like post #145 was authored by… (drum roll, please) … Comment by fire_one— 9/5/05 @ 9:38 pm
Dave, what you don’t get, what you will never get, is that folks like me don’t need to gain our self esteem from outside sources.
I never mentioned self-esteem and frankly, your own bloated self-worship is of no use to anyone. Are you really so egocentric that you think I meant our respect of you rather than what you say and believe? Seriously. Get over yourself!
We don’t judge our worth by what others think, nor do we care what others think and we don’t have to take a poll about if or how much others like us to see how our day will shape up. You can’t elevate our worth nor can you demean it because you simply aren’t that important and the only thing of consequence is what we see when we look inside ourselves.
This explains why you and the rest of your ilk have such difficulty admitting mistakes.
You completely miss the point, by the way. Perhaps intentionally, I suspect. Without carrying at least a modicum of respect from people you admittedly don’t care about, you accomplish nothing more than choir preaching. In your case, very shrill preaching at that. Clearly you already recognize this is true since you leave little caveats in your posts declaring that we won’t agree with you. Maybe you should stop and think about why that is.
At the same time you’ve somehow convinced yourself that you’re elevating the discourse here. The sad part is the only one who thinks so is you, and maybe a handful of others who are equally ineffective at communication. To everyone else it appears as though you want nothing more than to be an ideological caricature.
I’ll give you credit, you do a fine job there. But as a proponent of conservative ideology you do more harm than good for your cause. I’m not convinced you even really care about anything you say.
Horse Whisperer @129,
Just to be clear to everybody, Horse Whisperer is indeed my original source, who chooses to remain anonymous. This is the person who really broke the story… I was just the conduit.
Headless Lucy @147,
Oddly enough, PJ O’Rourke had a big influence on me, as my sensibilities as an essayist were informed by National Lampoon back during the PJ O’Rourke days. I remember reading an article he wrote for Car and Driver way back in the late 70’s, early 80’s, about touring a Soviet auto factory. I was on the floor.
When people ask me why there are no funny Republicans, I always point to PJ O’Rourke as the exception.
@119
Wow — that strutting, pompous, self-glorifying ass takes 6,895 words to say “conservatives good, liberals bad.” (Notice how I can do it in 4 words.)
Anyone who has “the desire, the patience or the fortitude to actually read this whole thing” has WAY too much time on his hands and needs to get a job!
The author of this screed describes himself as “a pampered and lazy Hollywood TV editor who gets paid insane sums of money to do a cake job” and then goes on, at some length, to attack various named Hollywood figures who failed to share the author’s political philosophy — I read this kind of fast, in fact I skipped over it, because I can’t relate to Hollywood celebrities or lifestyles so this part of his diatribe means nothing to me.
I’m pretty sure, though, that if I wanted to fix a lawnmower or recapture a hijacked airliner from terrorists, a lazy overpaid Hollywood TV editor is one of the last people I would look to for advice.
It occurred to me that reading Mr. Whittle’s rant is a bit like wading through the sewage covering New Orleans’ streets after coming to this tidbit, “if the Superdome had been filled with white, middle-class, racist, conservative cocksuckers like myself, it would not have been a refinery of horror, but rather a citadel of hope and order and restraint and compassion,” but with grit and determination, I continued on.
Mr. Whittle then tells us he belongs to a “tribe” — not a country — and goes on to catalogue the virtues of his (conservative) tribe including: “My Tribe doesn’t make excuses. My Tribe will analyze failure and assign blame ….” Uh, okay, whatever. Liberals, on the other hand, are a “vain, useless, smug, self-centered, incompetent, insecure and thoroughly broken en Tribe[.]” Hmmmm … whatever. Here’s the money shot: “I hate those sons of bitches with all of my heart.”
Wait, there’s more! “I SHOULD TELL YOU I OWN A GUN AND I KNOW HOW TO USE IT. I ASSURE YOU THAT THE PLEASURE I WOULD TAKE I N SHOOTING YOU WOULD BE TEMPORARY, MINIMAL, AND DEEPLY REGRETTED LATER.”
Not me! If Mr. Whittle comes after THIS rabbit with a gun — hunting license or no hunting license — MY pleasure in shooting HIM will be great, permanent, and without regret. If some violent asshole wants to kill me, I’ll just defend myself and not look back!
And I’m not just speculating! Mr. Whittle is targeting … Roger Rabbit! He says so! To wit, “Let’s talk about these two Tribes: Pink, the color of bunny ears, and Grey, the color of a mechanical pencil lead.” Reading further, it’s clear that he thinks pink (“bunny ears”) is bad, grey (“reinforced concrete”) is good.
To wit, “The Pink Tribe is all about feeling good: feeling good about yourself! Sexually, emotionally, artistically – nothing is off limits, nothing is forbidden, convention is fossilized insanity and everybody gets to do their own thing without regard to consequences, reality, or natural law.”
Aren’t you stereotyping a little bit there, pal? Fuck you, if you want to pick a fight with a rabbit, let’s do it motherfucker! (I’m not holding my breath — like all chickenhawks, this one is all hat, no cattle — he admits all of his macho experience is vicarious.)
Okay, so after categorizing everybody as “pink” (notice the commie innuendo?) and “gray” he does some more stereotyping:
“I’m going to throw out some names, and you tell me whether you think they are Pink or Grey? Okay? Ready?
“Donald Rumsfield.
“Al Sharpton.
“Bill Clinton.
“Ted Kennedy.
“George W. Bush.
“Condoleeza Rice.
“Okay, my score is Grey, Pink, Pink, Pink, Grey and Grey. Easy, right? Dems = Pink, Repubs = Grey.”
Uh, yeah … but somehow I suspect this test, like the Ohio election, was rigged. It has the same odor.
Notice Ted Kennedy is in there. Whenever any wingnut begins listing all his hates, Ted Kennedy is ALWAYS “in there.” A little further on, he rants even more about Kennedy (and manages to throw in a racial slur in the same breath — how’s that for two birds with one stone): “Ted Kennedy, a man well-acquainted with rising water crises is as white as they come.” What is it about Ted Kennedy that provokes these rightys so much?
“On the subject of disasters man-made and natural, one more thing from INSIDE 9/11 rings a powerful bell with me.”
Ahhhh … that’s it … the BELL!!! The Pavlovian bell!!! Mention the name “Ted Kennedy” and their little minds hear “ding” and they go off …
An instant later, Mr. Whittle switches metaphors — he’s no longer talking about bunny ears and concrete (you can only get so much mileage out of “pink” and he has, by this point of th e essay, pretty much milked that cow for what it’s worth) but about wolves, sheepdogs, and sheep. Let’s see if we can follow the new metaphor:
“The wolf wants to swallow us whole. He wants the fight. … And he will keep on huffing and puffing until one of three things happen: We show him our throat, for him to rip out; or we convert to Islam and become part of his Caliphate; or we head out into the forest with a shotgun and blow his fucking head off.”
Guns again!!! What is it with these people and their obsession with guns?? Sick, violent bastards, that’s what they are. Oh, and he throws in the “Islamists are going to convert us to their religion” line here, too.
So that’s pretty much it. I read the whole thing and it’s a big fucking waste of time — merely a collection of right-wing cliches strung together in an overly long rant of the “black hats, white hats” variety. A predictable wingnut who is predictably seeing the world in blacks and whites while pretending to know something about grey.
Thanks for wasting my time, ASShole. Fucking turd.
Oh, one more thing — this must have come from a blog, because there’s comments under it, and the very first comment says:
“Thanks, Bill. It was worth the wait. (I liked the part about the shotgun best.) Posted by: VRWC Man on September 5, 2005 07:54 AM”
I repeat, what IS IT WITH these WINGNUTS and their fucking obsession with GUNS and VIOLENCE? Where do they get that shit, from playing violent videogames? Whatever. I’m waiting for that asshole Bill Whipple to come looking for Roger Rabbit with his gun — the Rapture will arrive early for him. Oh wait, he said he’s an atheist. Well, if he tries to shoot Roger Rabbit, I’ll blow him to Hell anyway. That’s not a threat, it’s lawful self-defense.
@151
“So the free lunch wagon arrived 20 minutes late, big deal.”
Ten thousand people dead, and that’s all you can think of to say? Thanks, Gary. Oh — why do you hate America?
You know what’s laughable about that supposedly intellectual essay is that I knew who the pink tribe was without even reading it. Great dissection, Rabbit, if you don’t mind my using the word. ;)
Ass, All that has been done is, telling the truth, if the American people think Brown is the best person to coordinate federal assets in a disaster, I’m sure they will let their feelings be heard. They do deserve to know the qualifications of someone that their life may depend on.
Your making shit up again Puddy. That article at 131 doesn’t say what you claim.
Nagin never said “you’re on your own.” Those are Bruce Nolan’s words the author of the 7/24/2005 article in the Times-Picayune.
The civil emergency plan for NOLA is here.
You don’t source your claims for MS and AL and the LANG.
New Orleans is a poor town. Probably the poorest city by percentage in North America. Not exactly a good tax base to support a city in need of a world class civil preparedness plan.
I guess you can’t help yourself.
Ass @ 140 – “…because you simply aren’t that important”
Trust me, we have always known that the RepubliCons believe no one is important but themselves…
We will simply wait and see what the Katrina Commission has to say, and whether we can get up an impeachment for your Chimpanzee in Chief. -Comment by fire_one— 9/5/05 @ 10:14 pm
Katrina Commission??? LMAO …because Hillary needed to get her face equal time with Waggin his Willy’s? You seem to forget, although she clearly has not, which party is OUT OF POWER: “It has become increasingly evident that our nation was not prepared,” Clinton (D-N.Y.) said in a letter to Bush asking him to set up a “Katrina Commission.”
You do understand the meaning of the word asking, don’t you?
And see, THAT’S what you Michael Moore Automatons just don’t get:
I NEVER said I believed no one was important besides myself…
What I said was… (and now get out your dictionary/translator/magnifying glass or whatever the hell it is you need to comprehend something) … YOU are not important to MY SELF WORTH
I can certainly understand how, when you have spent a lifetime hoping for some validation, that could be confusing. But, read it again carefully: there is a HUGE difference between saying someone is unimportant and saying they are not important to my self worth.
God, those damned ‘fail but feel good about it’ public schools.
Every time I read a rant like the one linked @119, it sinks home to me that liberals need to arm.
If you ever plan on being more than simply iconic for everything people despise about the ideology you say you promote, it would do you well to work on gaining some respect from the rest of us instead of assuming you deserve it.
My mistake. I should have been more clear that I meant respect for your opinion rather than personally.
We get it, ASS. You’re in love with yourself. Can we move on now?
Goldy, Thanks for the compliment, but it is you that deserves all the credit for getting this out. Now the American people can either sleep well with exsisting federal emergency management assistance or demand change.
Righto bunnybutt @ 169 … – a strutting, pompous, self-glorifying HORSESASS takes 1,124 words to say your standard to be expected, and I quote, “ASShole. Fucking turd” diatribe.
Pot:Kettle, babe, and not very clever at that.
@171
I thought it was a very sophomoric collection of generalizations, stereotypes, cliches, and mixed metaphors — the sort of thing I used to submit to National Review when I was a 16-year-old Goldwater Republican dreaming of getting published nationally and becoming famous.
Well, I’ve been published — my letters to the editor have been published by Life, Newsweek, Time, and both Seattle papers, in fact Time Magazine has published my letters several times — and I assure you that I long ago outgrew the kind of writing that Mr. Bill Whipple wasted our time with. It’s the sort of thing I could knock out for a blog in about 10 minutes.
@178
At least I know how to edit, can’t say the same for that asshole TV editor. Maybe he’s why TV is so lousy.
Writing stereotypes can’t be hard. The stereotypes already exist, it’s not like he’s doing much more than framing them. With the way these neocon trolls were talking about it, you’d think there was something groundbreaking there. I knew if ASS was the source it was going to be a waste of time, though.
One thing I’ll say for JCH, he doesn’t need 6,895 words to say a load of crap. He can do it in 2 lines.
Roger @ 169
Nice takedown of Bill Whittle, the most flatulent wingnut gasbag in wingnut blogland.
He’s a great choice for the wingnut who prefers his/her hate “gassy”.
Wow! That link is @130 now. A lot of people must be getting hung up in Goldy’s spam filter tonight. Bad boys!
Oh! I almost forgot — Mr. Bill Whipple did not fail to attack Michael Moore, whom the Pompous Delusional Right hates as much as (perhaps more than) Ted Kennedy:
“The President does not have the authority to drop precious egg salad sandwiches from Michael Moore’s missing helicopters.”
I’m not sure what Mr. Bill Whipple is trying to say there, but it sounds like he’s trying to gin up some cover for the Bush administration allowing thousands of AMERICANS to die in New Orleans because they were too busy saving Iraqis. He continues:
“We do this ON PURPOSE. We limit the power of the federal government, as those of us fortunate enough to have spent time in Civics, rather than Self Esteem classes, are aware. This is so that we do not develop a central power so strong that eventually we end up with idiot inbred royals, or Presidentes for life, on the face of OUR money.”
You mean like the Bush family, Bill?
Comment on 183
Flatulent. Now there’s a word. Why didn’t I think of it? Yes, Bill Whipple is a flatulent gas bag. I wondered what that smell was — now I know. Bill Whipple will bring the odor of New Orleans to your in-box. Must not have enough TV shows to edit. That guy needs to get a real fucking job. Like being one of the cops, firefighters, or soldiers he extols in his essay — naw, he won’t, that sounds like too much work and might be risky too.
Like Pavlov’s dogs with a bell and a bone: give you a conservative and you spew all over him.
Woof, woof… how does it feel to be mind-numbingly PREDICTABLE?
I don’t know, ASS. Why don’t you tell us? I love how you always fall back on that “predictable” line, yet you’re never able to predict your way into an argument that actually gets you anywhere.
Mrs. Rabbit says if Stefan shows up in drag we should call him “Stefanie.” That Mrs. Rabbit — she quacks me up!!! :D :D :D
Reply to 187
“Like Pavlov’s dogs with a bell and a bone: give you a conservative and you spew all over him. Woof, woof… how does it feel to be mind-numbingly PREDICTABLE?”
Have you noticed how I take conservative tactics and shove them right back up your ASS? Do you like it?! How’s that for a dose of castor oil!!! Yeah … I used to be a Goldwater Republican … you assholes taught me well.
Mrs. Rabbit says Stefanie is Dino’s sister.
One thing Mr. Bill Whipple instinctively understands is that when civilization collapses and government ceases to exist, humans revert to tribal behavior. He’s already chosen his tribe! Since that’s conservatives’ objective — the point of this whole exercise is the destruction of liberal civilization and the elimination of democratic govenrment — he’s an optimist in addition to being a fucking nut!
This link from the 7,000 word tribal essay IS worth looking at:
http://www.dumpalink.com/media/1125653648
It is a MSNBC clip of the looting of the WalMart Supercenter on Tchoupitoulas Street in New Orleans. They even have a couple of police officers “shopping” for shoes. Several of the looters are white — probably about the same percentage as the general population that stayed in New Orleans. In any event, it is bizarrely humorous in a way.
I’m gonna join the Liberal Tribe, and I have a gun too! Just in case these fuckers succeed in destroying liberal civilization and eliminating democratic government. I’m gonna use the gun when members of the Wingnut Tribe come to arrest me for being a liberal. Ann Coulter says liberals should be put in “concentration camps” and “executed.”
I hope Ann Coulter personally tries to arrest me, so the Rapture can arrive early for her, too. Fucking slut.
Unlike Whipple, who most likely believes the shit he spews, Ann is just in it for money. Gullible right wing fools pay her millions to jerk off their metaphorical weenie, and she laughs all the way to the bank in her armored limousine, surrounded by bodyguards, living in constant fear of assassination. She’s the political equivalent of a porn peddler. Needs bodyguards everywhere she goes. Serves her right. Fucking slut.
Hey Richard what are you doing hanging around that girlie site? :D
My, my — look at the big honkers in those pictures! Richard — thanks! (I couldn’t find the article but who cares … )
Clueless: The mayor was there, supporting the Red Cross and others when the statements were made. Now let’s wait a minute. You accuse Bush of having an “incompetent” Brown running FEMA. Anything Brown says you all attribute to Bush. When your people Mayor Nagin run something and someone says something the mayor doesn’t refute, no one is responsible for the statement? Oh that’s the new lefty mantra. Bullshit Clueless, it’s better if you stick to your mantra! The mayor was there, he could have refuted the statement, he is in charge, so STFU!
RPope, getting past the eye candy, the lady cops were priceless.
Reporter: “Police in aisle three”
Reporter: “Hi. What are you doing?”
Cop: “Doing my job.”
Reporter: “Taking shoes?
Cop “Looking for Looters”
Cop: “They are all around us, including you.”
Reporter: I’m not taking anything ma’am
Hilarous, even Clueless can comprehend this discussion.
Hey Roger I thought you were a wascally wabbit? What do human women with large mammaries do for you?
Clueless my post is in purgatory waiting for Goldy to release it.
@196
They make my cottontail all tingly! I mean, really, have you ever SEEN a bunny tit? You need a magnifying class to find them! Any jackrabbit with cojones loves to feast his eyes on pics of nekkid wimmin!
But Rethug-bashing is even more fun!
Oh, I almost forgot, I need to stock up on 12-gauge shells for Mr. Bill Whipple’s visit. I buy the ones with 0-0 buckshot but reload them to add extra ingredients — broken glass, thumbtacks, rat poison, and of course before resealing the business end of the round, I piss in it. It Mr. Bill Whipple shows up on my doorstep with his gun, man is he ever gonna have an infection in what’s left of his crotch.
I suppose some putty-brained troll will come along and accuse me of threatening Mr. Whipple. Not so! I only shoot back in self-defense within the spirit and letter of the law!
Mr. Whipple is the one who made threats!
He said, “I SHOULD TELL YOU I OWN A GUN AND I KNOW HOW TO USE IT. I ASSURE YOU THAT THE PLEASURE I WOULD TAKE I N SHOOTING YOU WOULD BE TEMPORARY, MINIMAL, AND DEEPLY REGRETTED LATER” and he also said “we head out into the forest with a shotgun and blow his fucking head off.”
This is liberals he’s talking about. Not only that, he specifically identifies the target of his violence as “Pink … bunny ears.” If that’s not me he’s talking about, I don’t know what the fuck is!!! :O
Well I have news for you trolls, this state allows rabbits to defend themselves. Haven’t you ever heard of the Pasado law? I don’t have to just sit there on my haunches and get blown away by some NRA asshole with a gun.
If these right-wing fuckers think they can roll Roger Rabbit without a fight, man they’re in for a surprise — the Rapture will arrive early for some of them! As many as I can get before they get me! Mr. Whipple may have rabbit stew for dinner, but it’ll be the most expensive meal he ever ate because it’ll cost him an arm, leg, and family jewels!
correction to #201 (I forgot to type my pink ears)
=:O
Clueless: Since Goldy didn’t release my post here is part of it.
Your side loves to say the GWB is responsible for anything and anyone who says distasteful to you. Well on July 24th 2005, in the same news conference about them being on their own, Mayor Nagin did not refute anything said by the other people. Therefore he is complicit with their thoughts, deeds, actions, and words. So if one person said the city dwellers are on their own, the city is going to put that on DVD for distribution, then it’s just like he said it because he didn’ refute it when mentioned. Your side loves to implicate guilt by association but could care less when we call you on the same tactics.
NUFF SAID!!!!
1) how about it was a natural disaster, meaning man isn’t perfect and perfectly able to fix it within 5 minutes of it happening (meaning you all expect too much)
2) and if you want to blame someone, how about 1/3 to each of the main branches of government (local, state, fed).
Of course that would be too logical and not worthy of all you donkey hind ends..
This is liberals he’s talking about. Not only that, he specifically identifies the target of his violence as “Pink … bunny ears.” If that’s not me he’s talking about, I don’t know what the fuck is!!! :O
Hey Wabbit you are supose to say”WHAT’S UP DOC” and munch on a carrot. Or you can change your handle.
So, did you see that picture of all the school buses partially submerged in the New Orleans flood water?
http://www.hogonice.com/Pixes/bushschoolbuses.jpg
I have heard that President Bush and Karl Rove were seen in the parking lot slashing the tires so the buses could NOT be used to evacuate the poor, elderly and infirm.
But we won’t play the blame game.
re 149: Rufus, what exactly do you mean by “even you” in your mini-screed? Don’t bother answering, we know the truth no matter what you say. The answer is Republicans. And another thing: Many of these blogs hosted by supposed “black conservatives” are really white men playing a little deceptive race manipulation of their own. They wear their blackness on their sleeves like a useful political ornament. A real black person wants their ideas understood and accepted for what they are— not because they are black. I would be extremely suspicious of anyone whose main claim to fame is being a black Republican conservative. A black person can be a conservative, but NEVER a Republican! Your party as it is constituted today is the political heir of John Wilkes Boothe, not Abraham Lincoln. That assassin Pat Robertson is YOUR poster boy–not ours.
headless lucy @ 207
‘A black person can be a conservative, but NEVER a Republican!’
Oh thank you very much. That is mighty white of you to allow free thought but not free association. It is Jim Crow all over again.
Puddy – You just can’t stop peddling shit.
Bush ate cake and played guitar while NOLA drowned. That’s a fact. He was about as enaged in the crisis as Nero.
You’re doing everything you can to hang FEMA’s incompetence and inaction on Nagin and Blanco.
Who gave Brown, an unqualified hack, his job?
But Rethug-bashing is even more fun! -Comment by Roger Rabbit— 9/6/05 @ 1:29 am
That’s it bunnybutt…that’s exactly all you and your degenerate, malcontent ilk are all about … just a Michael Moron in fuzzy bunny slippers – no ideas, no real intellect, nothing to contribute… simply an agitator. You claim to be a vet from the Vietnam era – as what, an antiwar agitator? Of Course because you are still simply spitting on your enemies and calling it contribution.
re 208:You will never claim the hearts and minds of the majority of black people because you possess neither. You can’t appeal to what you don’t have.
HEY, BIGMOUTH HEALESS LUCY/BALLSLESS LOONEY – WHY THE HELL ARE YOU BLOGGING ON SCHOOL TIME?
AND **COWARD** BIGMOUTH HEALESS LUCY/BALLSLESS LOONEY, I’M STILL WAITING FOR MY ANSWERS, COACH…. WHY ARE YOU HIDING, COACH… WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF, COACH?
I want to know for which public school lucy is the wrestling coach he/she/it claims to be. As a family closely associated with the wrestling program in our league, I want to make sure that he/she/it has absolutely no contact with our children.
I suspect it’s the S King county public school that had to suspend most of it’s wrestlers last year for breaking, entering and stealing from another team in it’s own school. I suspect it’s that particular school further because they are known league and tournament wide as dirty wrestlers, cheats, mat crawlers and whiners… all of which would be learned at the knees of their COACH. -Comment by HowCanYouBePROUDtobeAnASS— 9/5/05 @ 2:01 pm
I’m still waiting, headless lucy/ballsless loony – time to step up to the plate brave boy/girl/thing and announce your team. Tell us, how much time does it take to teach your wrestlers to be mat crawlers looking for that out of bound line like an illegal immigrant looking for a whole in the border? Wouldn’t your time be a little better spent actually teaching them to wrestle instead of whine? Wasn’t it one of your punks that was ejected from league championship competition for biting his opponent a year or 2 ago? Be the man you claim (wish) to be, coach -Comment by HowCanYouBePROUDtobeAnASS— 9/5/05 @ 10:17 pm
re 208:You will never claim the hearts and minds of the majority of black people because you possess neither. You can’t appeal to what you don’t have. -Comment by headless lucy— 9/6/05 @ 9:04 am
I KNOW YOU’RE HEAR YOU PATHETIC LIBERAL COWARD, ANSWER THE QUESTION COACH
YOOOHOOOO…COACH, WE’RE ALL WAITING FOR YOU, TWEETY
on a side note, maybe we shouldn’t talk about ‘Democracy in action”… We’ll scare the righties away.
headless lucy @ 210
‘..hearts and minds of the majority of black people..’
is better than
‘A black person can be a conservative, but NEVER a Republican!’
It will be harder to win over the “majority”, yet many ‘A black person’ are at home on the right. More will come when they finally get fed up with the patronizing and slogans fed to them by the dems.
Last week I broke the story about FEMA director Mike Brown, whose ten-year tenure at the International Arabian Horse Association left him stunningly unqualified to lead national relief efforts.
What exactly were Hillary’s qualifications to become the nation’s health care czar?
what exactly are your qualifications, Michael @ 220, to be part of the human race?
RIPpedbytheGOP @ 221
Answering a question with a question? Oops, I did it too.
re 219:…..what a fool believes…
HowCanYouBePROUDtobeAnASS, how do you know for a fact that headless lucy is indeed a wrestling coach? How do you know for a fact that headless lucy might not be a student using the school’s computer system? You’re wasting your own, and everyone else’s time with your verbiage infested garbage. You’re not even on the proper topic, you pompous ass!
P.S, maybe headless lucy is a movement, not a person.
@208
That’s Bugs Bunny, dolt! I don’t even know him, and he isn’t a relative, either. Not a close relative, anyway.
@213
That’s right, I spent a year camping on an ant hill in I Corps and getting my little cottontail shot at so an anti-American fascist prick like you can call me names; and I would do it again.
Imperious @ 224–
Headless Lucy is a movement all right….
A bowel movement!
“Headless Lucy is a movement all right….
A bowel movement!”
A bowel movement shitting people like you out into the sewers.
BallslessLooney has proven him/her/itself to be a vile, schizophrenic, cowardly, lying piece of Chicken ass – you know the ugly part with all that disgusting fat hanging down.
BallslessLooney should be fired for diddling on school time.
BallslessLooney should be fired for enjoying that Saturday Night Ride a little to much with 14 yr old wrestlers.
BallslessLooney should would actually have to be a MAN to teach his wrestlers to behave like men… instead his lesson one is how to find the out of bounds circle on their belly from anywhere on the mat, whinig for injury time and stall, stall, stall….kinda like the little bastard does in in answering question… right ballsless?
OK, I have neither the time nor the desire to read through all the comments regarding Mike Brown’s position as FEMA director as well as his position with the HSD, however, the amount of misinformation flying around the internet relating to Mr Brown’s tenure at the International Arabian Horse Association is of utmost interest to me.
As a longtime professional trainer, breeder and judge in the Arabian horse industry (nearly 30 years) and having spent almost 40 years deeply and personally involved with this phenomenal breed of horse, I am extremely frustrated with the portrayal of Brown’s position, the circumstances of his leaving and what he did or did not accomplish while at IAHA.
To start, the ONLY thing about IAHA that has changed in recent years is the name, and the fact that our Purebred Registry (AHRA) merged with the IAHA to form AHA – Arabian Horse Association. Stating the IAHA “no longer exists” is utterly ridiculous. The organization is the same as before in what it accomplishes for the breed. Only the name has changed in light of said merger. A merger which was deemed, by IAHA delegates, to be in the best interest of all IAHA members.
Bill Pennington was NOT the president of IAHA during most of Brown’s time with the association, Tom Connelly was. And straight “from the horse’s mouth”, so to speak, Tom states Brown WAS NOT fired nor forced to resign. It was, indeed, voluntary.
I am simply amazed that the media would chase after the Karl Hart’s, David Boggs’ and Michael Streeter’s of this world to dig up dirt on Mike Brown. Why would these folks and a few of their cronies have anything good to say about him? After all, he is the only individual in the history of IAHA/AHA to have the sheer, unmitigated gumption to go after those (named above) who perpetuated horrific frauds against Arabian owners, trainers, breeders and the breed itself, and those (also named) who aided and abetted said frauds.
Before we run with a “hot story”, perhaps we should get our facts straight.
SunlitLady @ 230
‘Before we run with a “hot story”, perhaps we should get our facts straight.’
Before we make outrageous requests, perhaps we should realize where we are posting our comments. Goldy and his band of HA followers have more important things to do than digest facts.
Before we make outrageous requests, perhaps we should realize where we are posting our comments. Goldy and his band of HA followers have more important things to do than digest facts. -Comment by NoWonder— 9/7/05 @ 7:38 am
Less that they have more important things to DO, which implies they actually DO something and more that they have a (failing) agenda to put forward: denigrate, oppose, polarize and pretend/beg for relevancy.
HowCanYouBePROUDtobeAnASS @ 229
headless lucy is by far ‘not’ a wrestling coach. I haven’t a clue why you stick to your unfounded and rediculous conclusions. headless lucy is a movement you pinheaded twit.
headless lucy is by far ‘not’ a wrestling coach. I haven’t a clue why you stick to your unfounded and rediculous conclusions. headless lucy is a movement you pinheaded twit. -Comment by Imperious— 9/7/05 @ 11:02 am
Oh, he/she/it is NOT a wrestling coach???
Well then, I expect the Ballsless him/her/it to stand up and say I LIED, in as much as it was he/she/it that claimed to be a wrestling coach.
Those corners get to be pretty damned uncomfortable for asses when they get stuck in them, eh?
Yes, the I’m a wrestling coach response was to a comment by PacMan if memory serves me correctly. But Loocy will not state where that magnificient brain was trained. Remember Gov Faubus Loocy!!! Which means headless loocy is a man, becuz Seattle is super PC with that stuff. Which means there be a new crop of virgin wrestlers for Loocy!! Sakes alive!
L00cy, (that’s right a double zero for you) for some on the right Robertson may be a poster-boy. But for everyone on the left the Chappaquiddick swimmer is the poster boy for clearing the deck of bad evidence. Just drown it is his motto. Look at his drinking habits. He be in a tight spot, just drown it with alcohol! But for everyone on the left KKK 3-Sheets to the wind Robert Byrd is the poster boy for saying “Wrong, Wrong” to just about anything said by lefties here on HA! Or how about Mrs. America the poster girl for the left for everything wrong in a politician – Nancy Pelosi. Or the twin senators from California – Boxer & Feinstein or better yet the two masters of pork barrel politics from our own state Cant-Do-Well or What’s her name, you know, the sneaker lady? You know, the one who said Osama builds dem good roads and schools? Dats’ right – it’s Patty Murray!
Imperious – Another wonderful lefty name. What are you imperious to or are you just marked by arrogant assurance or just domineering at home? Over what the dog, cat, wife?