Give Up Blog

Give Up Blog: "The Hitler vs. Coulter Quiz

Can you correctly attribute the following quotes?"

The Chronicle: 6/23/2006: Jesus Is Not a Republican

The Chronicle: 6/23/2006: Jesus Is Not a Republican: "Jesus Is Not a Republican"

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall June 21, 2006 01:17 PM

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall June 21, 2006 01:17 PM: "But the basic picture is clear: the American people then, as they will now, will stick through a lot of adversity if they think the war they're fighting matters and that their president knows what he's doing.

Then they did. Now they don't."

This an Important Article

Petrodollar Warfare: Dollars, Euros and the Upcoming Iranian Oil Bourse | EnergyBulletin.net | Peak Oil News Clearinghouse: "“This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous...Having said that, all options are on the table.”
– President George W. Bush, February 2005"

Are You Surprised?

CNN.com - Harvard study blasts Bush education policy - Feb 16, 2006: "President Bush's No Child Left Behind education policy has in some cases benefited white middle-class children over blacks and other minorities in poorer regions, a Harvard University study showed Tuesday."

You Knew This Was Coming

informationliberation - Houston Police Chief Wants Surveillance Cameras In Private Homes: "'I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother, but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?' Chief Harold Hurtt told reporters Wednesday at a regular briefing."

The Editors on Tom DeLay on National Review Online

The Editors on Tom DeLay on National Review Online: "Republicans underestimate the potential impact of the Abramoff scandal at their peril. One top Republican strategist told us, 'There are two types of House Republicans: Those who are in trouble, and those who don't know it yet.' Republicans have to do more, rather than less, to control the damage."

Baby Got Book - Google Video

Baby Got Book - Google Video: "Funny"

Breasts 101

Breasts 101 Boob Facts.

Former Stanford Dean Fails California Bar Exam

TaxProf Blog: Former Stanford Dean Fails California Bar Exam: "Kathleen Sullivan is a noted constitutional scholar who has argued cases before the Supreme Court. Until recently, she was dean of Stanford Law School. In legal circles, she has been talked about as a potential Democratic nominee for the Supreme Court. But Ms. Sullivan recently became the latest prominent victim of California's notoriously difficult bar exam. "

More Bad PR for Wally World

Tampabay: Racial profiling feared at Wal-Mart: "Store managers delay a black customer for two hours. It took police 19 minutes to figure out he did nothing wrong."

Robert Novak

Printer Friendly: "The antidote to avoid that fate is to keep as far away from President Bush as possible, a lesson underlined by the president's failed election rescue mission for former Virginia state Attorney General Kilgore. The consequences may be profound. As his approval rating dipped, Bush increasingly has been treated in Congress as a lame duck. Tuesday's Virginia outcome increases the propensity of Republican senators and House members not only to avoid their president on the campaign trail but also to ignore his legislative proposals."

You Gotta Love It.

Innocent English: Funny English Mistakes from around the world: "Top 10 Funniest Bushisms of all time
The Top Ten Funny Mistakes, Mistatements, Bloopers and Blunders By President George W. Bush
1. 'I am here to make an announcement that this Thursday, ticket counters and airplanes will fly out of Ronald Reagan Airport.' —Washington, D.C., Oct. 3, 2001

2. 'Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country.' —Poplar Bluff, Mo., Sept. 6, 2004

3. 'Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.' —Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004

4. 'There's no doubt in my mind that we should allow the world worst leaders to hold America hostage, to threaten our peace, to threaten our friends and allies with the world's worst weapons.' —South Bend, Indiana, Sept. 5, 2002.

5. 'There's an old...saying in Tennessee...I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee that says Fool me once...(3 second pause)... Shame on...(4 second pause)...Shame on you....(6 second pause)...Fool me...Can't get fooled again.' —Nashville, Tennessee, Sept. 17, 2002.

6. 'See, free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don't attack each other. Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction.' —Milwaukee, Wis., Oct. 3, 2003

7. 'The ambassador and the general were briefing me on the -- the vast majority of Iraqis want to live in a peaceful, free world. And we will find these people and we will bring them to justice.' —Washington, D.C., Oct. 27, 2003.

8 'I'm looking forward to a good night's sleep on the soil of a friend.' —on visiting Denmark, Washington D.C., June 29, 2005

9. 'Wow! Brazil is big.' after being shown a map of Brazil by Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brasilia, Brazil, Nov. 6, 2005

10. A TIE BETWEEN:
'Rarely is the question asked, 'Is our children learning'?'
—Florence, S.C. Jan 11 2000
'The illiteracy level of our children are appalling.' —Washington, D.C., Jan. 23, 20004"

What Will the Fundies Do Now?

Alito signals reluctance to reverse ‘Roe’ ruling - washingtonpost.com Highlights - MSNBC.com: "Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. has signaled he would be highly reluctant to overturn long-standing precedents such as the 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion rights ruling, a move that has helped to silence some of his critics and may resolve a key problem early in the Senate confirmation process, several senators said yesterday.

In private meetings with senators who support abortion rights, Alito has said the Supreme Court should be quite wary of reversing decisions that have been repeatedly upheld, according to the senators who said it was clear that the context was abortion.


• More Supreme Court coverage
'He basically said . . . that Roe was precedent on which people -- a lot of people -- relied, and been precedent now for decades and therefore deserved great respect,' Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) told reporters after meeting with Alito yesterday. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said she had a similar conversation about an hour later with Alito, who has made clear that he personally opposes abortion."

There is a ... um...aw damn.

Pennsylvania Voters Oust School Board - Yahoo! News: "Voters came down hard Tuesday on school board members who backed a statement on intelligent design being read in biology class, ousting eight Republicans and replacing them with Democrats who want the concept stripped from the science curriculum."

Good Article From Kinsley

How Conservative Is "Too Conservative"? - Rules for the Alito Games. By Michael Kinsley: "How Conservative Is 'Too Conservative'?"

Fair and Balanced

PoliticalMoneyLine: "Rep. Tom DeLay filed a report with the Clerk of the House of Representatives indicating he received free travel valued at $13,998.55 from Fox News Sunday for 'officially connected travel' on October 1-2, 2005, from Sugarland, TX to Washington, D.C. and back to Sugarland, TX. Rep. DeLay appeared on Fox News Sunday on October 2, 2005, the weekend after his indictment on September 28, 2005."

The Republican Playbook

Salon.com News | Abramoff-Scanlon School of Sleaze:

"Up-and-coming Republican hacks would do well to watch closely the ongoing Senate investigations of superstar lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his former business partner Michael Scanlon. The power duo stand accused of exploiting Native American tribes to the tune of roughly $66 million, laundering that money into bank accounts they controlled and then using it to buy favors for powerful members of Congress and the executive branch.

But they sure did know how to play the game.

Consider one memo highlighted in a Capitol Hill hearing Wednesday that Scanlon, a former aide to Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, sent the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana to describe his strategy for protecting the tribe's gambling business. In plain terms, Scanlon confessed the source code of recent Republican electoral victories: target religious conservatives, distract everyone else, and then railroad through complex initiatives.

'The wackos get their information through the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the internet and telephone trees,' Scanlon wrote in the memo, which was read into the public record at a hearing of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. 'Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them.' The brilliance of this strategy was twofold: Not only would most voters not know about an initiative to protect Coushatta gambling revenues, but religious 'wackos' could be tricked into supporting gambling at the Coushatta casino even as they thought they were opposing it."

President Bush's and Vice-President Cheney's Church Tells Them to Pull Out of Iraq

Sweet Victory: United Methodist Church Calls For Withdrawal: "It's one thing when former high-ranking members of your own Administration come out against your war. It's another thing when two-thirds of the country calls the invasion and occupation a mistake. It's really something when your own church issues a statement urging you to pull out the troops now.

Last week, the United Methodist Church Board of Church and Society--the social action committee of the church that both President Bush and Vice President Cheney belong to--resoundingly passed a resolution calling for withdrawal with only two 'no' votes and one abstention."

Scooter is Fucked...and Probably Rove Too.

ABC News: Time Reporter Says He Learned Agent's Identity From Rove:

Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper also said today in an interview with "Good Morning America," that the vice president's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, confirmed to him that Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a covert CIA operative.

More:

"'There is no question. I first learned about Valerie Plame working at the CIA from Karl Rove,' Cooper said."

How About a Little Hipocrisy This Morning

FOXNews.com - Views - Martin Frost - Reality Vs. Rhetoric in the Abortion Debate:

"And then there is the issue of religion. The study found “There is a vast gap between the rhetorical positions that religious leaders take on abortion and the actual practices of the laity in those religions.”

Specifically, Catholics represent 27 percent of those having abortions -- roughly 350,000 per year— and Born-Again or Evangelical Christians represent 13 percent of those having abortions – roughly 170,000 per year."

Why You Should Not Trust Your Government

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."

-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials

Danforth Criticizes Christian Sway in GOP

Danforth Criticizes Christian Sway in GOP - Yahoo! News: "LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Former Sen. John Danforth said Wednesday that the political influence of evangelical Christians is hurting the Republican Party and dividing the country.

Danforth, a Missouri Republican and an Episcopal priest, commented after meeting with students at the
Bill Clinton School of Public Service, a graduate branch of the University of Arkansas on the grounds of the Clinton presidential library.

'I think that the Republican Party fairly recently has been taken over by the Christian conservatives, by the Christian right,' he said in an interview. 'I don't think that this is a permanent condition, but I think this has happened, and that it's divisive for the country.'"

Good News

USATODAY.com - Katrina's floodwaters not as toxic as expected:

"The New Orleans floodwaters described as toxic in news accounts of Hurricane Katrina's impact were actually about as dangerous as the city's normal storm water runoff, according to surprised researchers at Louisiana State University."

No Wine for You

Little known law lands lawyer in trouble - World News - Webindia123.com:
"A Washington energy lawyer finds herself in trouble with police because of a tough but little known local law governing blood-alcohol content.

After she was pulled her over late one night for driving without headlights, Debra Bolton told police she had had just a glass of red wine during dinner, reports The Washington Post.

A Breathalyzer test showed a reading of .03, well below the legal limit in most states. As to the headlights, Bolton explained the parking attendant must have turned off her vehicle's automatic-light feature, the report said.

But she was handcuffed, searched, arrested, put in a jail cell and charged with driving under the influence of alcohol under a D.C. law that says a driver can be arrested with as little as .01 blood-alcohol content."

Judge for Yourself

This woman was kicked off of the plane because she wore an anti-Bush t-shirt. What do you think?
Channel 4 KRNV.com: Local News and Weather for Reno-Tahoe Region: Oregon woman kicked off flight in Reno over offensive shirt: "Oregon woman kicked off flight in Reno over offensive shirt"

All I Need To Know

Previously, I have posted rants on how damaging and evil I think James Dobson is. His views are archaic and harmful.

This article points out that Dobson "praised the [Miers] pick". Well, if he is for her, then I am against her. That may seem ignorant or uninformed, but I have learned enough about Dobson to know that everything he believes is completely opposite of what I believe.

Rocky Mountain News: Local:

"Some prominent conservatives have expressed skepticism or dismay over Miers' nomination, saying her beliefs are less than crystal clear. But Dobson, one of the country's most outspoken evangelical Christian leaders, praised the pick."

John Stewart is a Genius

From his 10/3/05 show.
Comedy Central - Media Player: "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart"

onegoodmove: Starie Decisis

Funny. Watch it.
onegoodmove: Starie Decisis: "The new season of Saturday Night Live began last night and Robert Smigel's Saturday Night Fun House on Judge Roberts was spot on."

Moralist Defends Racism

News Hounds: Bill Bennett Doesn't Get It. Trying To Defend His Racist Comments On Hannity & Colmes, He Misses At Least Half The Reason People Were Offended:

"In last night's 'exclusvie interview' on Hannity & Colmes, Bennett seemed to think that the problem with his remarks was that people thought he was saying black babies should be aborted. That seemed to be the issue he wanted to clairfy, not his connection with blacks and crime. He complained to Alan Colmes about his quote being taken out of context. 'When ('morally reprehensible') is included in the quote, (that) makes it perfectly clear what my position is.' Without that phrase, Bennett said, it looked as though he supports such a 'monstrous idea.'

Bennett either ignored or overlooked how people such as Congressman John Conyers felt when he stated in a letter to the Salem Radio Network, 'The fact that Mr. Bennett later acknowledged that such abortions would be 'morally reprehensible,' but added again that if it was done 'the crime rate would go down,' is equally outrageous.'"

Time To Fight the Religious Right

DefCon Blog � Blog Archive � Time To Fight the Religious Right: "I believe that the greatest threat to liberty in the United States is posed by the religious right, largely comprised of Christian fundamentalists. Across a broad spectrum of issues they want to move the law in a radically more conservative direction, ultimately threatening our freedom."

From the Author of "A Book of Virtues"

The moralist hypocrite Bill Bennett has a solution to the crime problem--just abort all black babies.

From Media Matters:

"I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky."

We Are Fine

Hey all:

We are fine and heading back to Abbeville today. In a couple of days I will post details of our experiences that last 4 days.

Ricky

You Knew This Was Coming.

local6.com - News - Katrina Church Sign Suggests God Punished New Orleans:
"The New England Baptist Church sign asked the question, 'New Orleans-Natural Disaster or God's Anger With Sin?'

The sign was posted outside the New England Baptist Church."

A Very Conservative Conservative Says it Best

OpinionJournal - Peggy Noonan:

"'Katrina changed everything.' No it didn't, but it changed a lot. It gave the administration its first indisputable domestic black eye. Roughly half the country has been attacking President Bush for an inadequate response and roughly half the country has been defending him by pointing the finger elsewhere or parsing the federal role in local emergency response. But no one is walking around saying, 'Was this his best moment or what? A triumph!' Because no one thinks it was."

Ex-FEMA Chief Tells of Frustration and Chaos - New York Times

Ex-FEMA Chief Tells of Frustration and Chaos - New York Times:

Highlights from NYTimes article:

"Mr. Brown's version of events raises questions about whether the White House and Mr. Chertoff acted aggressively enough in the response. New Orleans convulsed in looting and violence after the hurricane, and troops did not arrive in force to restore order until five days later.

The account also suggests that responsibility for the failure may go well beyond Mr. Brown, who has been widely pilloried as an inexperienced manager who previously oversaw horse show judges."

And more:

"The most responsive person he could find, Mr. Brown said, was Governor Blanco's husband, Raymond. 'He would try to go find stuff out for me,' Mr. Brown said.

Governor Blanco's communications director, Mr. Mann, said that she was frustrated that Mr. Brown and others at FEMA wanted itemized requests before acting. "It was like walking into an emergency room bleeding profusely and being expected to instruct the doctors how to treat you," he said.

On Monday night, Mr. Brown said, he reported his growing worries to Mr. Chertoff and the White House. He said he did not ask for federal active-duty troops to be deployed because he assumed his superiors in Washington were doing all they could. Instead, he said, he repeated a dozen times, "I cannot get a unified command established."

The next morning, Mr. Brown said, he and Governor Blanco decided to take a helicopter into New Orleans to see the mayor and assess the situation. But before the helicopter took off, his field coordinating officer, or F.C.O., called from the city on a satellite phone. "It is getting out of control down here; the levee has broken," the staff member told him, he said.

The crowd in the Superdome, the city's shelter of last resort, was already larger than expected. But Mr. Brown said he was relieved to see that the mayor had a detailed list of priorities, starting with help to evacuate the Superdome.

Mr. Brown passed the list on to the state emergency operations center in Baton Rouge, but when he returned that evening he was surprised to find that nothing had been done.

"I am just screaming at my F.C.O., 'Where are the helicopters?' " he recalled. " 'Where is the National Guard? Where is all the stuff that the mayor wanted?' "

11Alive.com: Atlanta - Evacuees Denied for Having Too Much

11Alive.com: Atlanta - Evacuees Denied for Having Too Much:

"Amazingly, in the midst of now having next to nothing, two families of hurricane evacuees had too much before Hurricane Katrina to receive aid afterward."

All the President's Friends - New York Times

All the President's Friends - New York Times: "All the President's Friends"

Joe suggests this is a must read. I concur. If you cannot get to the piece, Joe has posted it on his blog.

KRT Wire | 09/13/2005 | Chertoff delayed federal response, memo shows

KRT Wire | 09/13/2005 | Chertoff delayed federal response, memo shows:

"Even before the storm struck the Gulf Coast, Chertoff could have ordered federal agencies into action without any request from state or local officials. Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown had only limited authority to do so until about 36 hours after the storm hit, when Chertoff designated him as the 'principal federal official' in charge of the storm.

As thousands of hurricane victims went without food, water and shelter in the days after Katrina's early morning Aug. 29 landfall, critics assailed Brown for being responsible for delays that might have cost hundreds of lives.

But Chertoff - not Brown - was in charge of managing the national response to a catastrophic disaster, according to the National Response Plan, the federal government's blueprint for how agencies will handle major natural disasters or terrorist incidents. An order issued by President Bush in 2003 also assigned that responsibility to the homeland security director.

But according to a memo obtained by Knight Ridder, Chertoff didn't shift that power to Brown until late afternoon or evening on Aug. 30, about 36 hours after Katrina hit Louisiana and Mississippi. That same memo suggests that Chertoff may have been confused about his lead role in disaster response and that of his department."

Wow

U.S. Newswire : Releases : "Conyers Releases NonPartisan Congressional Research Service Report...": "Conyers Releases Non-Partisan Congressional Research Service Report on Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina: Report Confirms that Louisiana Took Necessary and Timely Steps

9/13/2005 2:52:00 PM

To: National Desk

Contact: Dena Graziano of the Office of Congressman John Conyers, Jr., 202-226-6888; Web: http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/index.html

WASHINGTON, Sept. 13 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Pursuant to a September 7 request by Representative John Conyers to review the law and legal accountability relating to Federal action in response to Hurricane Katrina, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) issued a report today about whether the Governor of Louisiana took the necessary and timely steps needed to secure disaster relief from the federal government. The report unequivocally concludes that she did.

Congressman Conyers issued the following statement:

'This report closes the book on the Bush Administration's attempts to evade accountability by shifting the blame to the Governor of Louisiana for the Administration's tragically sluggish response to Katrina. It confirms that the Governor did everything she could to secure relief for the people of Louisiana and the Bush Administration was caught napping at a critical time.'

In addition to finding that '...it would appear that the Governor did take the steps necessary to request emergency and major disaster declarations for the State of Louisiana in anticipation of Hurricane Katrina. (p.11)' The report found that:

-- All necessary conditions for federal relief were met on August 28. Pursuant to Section 502 of the Stafford Act, '(t)he declaration of an emergency by the President makes Federal emergency assistance available,' and the President made such a declaration on August 28. The public record indicates that several additional days passed before such assistance was actually made available to the State;

-- The Governor must make a timely request for such assistance, which meets the requirements of federal law. The report states that '(e)xcept to the extent that an emergency involves primarily Federal interests, both declarations of major disaster and declarations of emergency must be triggered by a request to the President from the Governor of the affected state';

-- The Governor did indeed make such a request, which was both timely and in compliance with federal law. The report finds that 'Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco requested by letter dated August 27, 2005...that the President declare an emergency for the State of Louisiana due to Hurricane Katrina for the time period from August 26, 2005 and continuing pursuant to (applicable Federal statute)' and 'Governor Blanco's August 27, 2005 request for an emergency declaration also included her determination...that 'the incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the State and affected local governments and that supplementary Federal assistance is necessary to save lives, protect property, public health, and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of disaster.'"

From the Utterly Ridiculous Department

WCNC.com | News for Charlotte, N.C. | Top Stories:

"Farrakhan also shared his thoughts on how the levee breached in the first place.

'I heard from a very reliable source who saw a 25 foot deep crater under the levee breach. It may have been blown up to destroy the black part of town and keep the white part dry,' Farrakhan said."

How Bush Blew It - Newsweek

How Bush Blew It - Newsweek Hurricane Katrina Coverage - MSNBC.com:

"How this could be—how the president of the United States could have even less 'situational awareness,' as they say in the military, than the average American about the worst natural disaster in a century—is one of the more perplexing and troubling chapters in a story that, despite moments of heroism and acts of great generosity, ranks as a national disgrace."

The money quote:

According to Sen. David Vitter, a Republican ally of Bush's, the meeting came to a head when Mayor Nagin blew up during a fraught discussion of "who's in charge?" Nagin slammed his hand down on the table and told Bush, "We just need to cut through this and do what it takes to have a more-controlled command structure. If that means federalizing it, let's do it."

A debate over "federalizing" the National Guard had been rattling in Washington for the previous three days. Normally, the Guard is under the control of the state governor, but the Feds can take over—if the governor asks them to. Nagin suggested that Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, the Pentagon's on-scene commander, be put in charge. According to Senator Vitter, Bush turned to Governor Blanco and said, "Well, what do you think of that, Governor?" Blanco told Bush, "I'd rather talk to you about that privately." To which Nagin responded, "Well, why don't you do that now?"

Worldandnation: 'Average' past trails troubled FEMA chief

Worldandnation: 'Average' past trails troubled FEMA chief: "In 2002, a pair of FBI agents showed up at a small, well-known law firm near Oklahoma City, asking questions about Mike Brown, a former employee being considered for a job at the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

There, Stephen Jones, a lawyer best known for defending bomber Timothy McVeigh, recalled how he hired Brown fresh from law school two decades earlier. He'd been impressed by Brown's stint on a nearby city council.

But just a few years later, Jones and the other four partners decided to split the firm. To minimize job loss, they unanimously agreed to keep 35 of their 37 employees. Brown was not one of them.

'He did not develop the way we wanted,' Jones said this week. 'He was average. Maybe that's the best way to put it.'

Brown was pleasant enough, if a bit opportunistic, Jones said, but he did not put enough time and energy into his job. 'He would have been better suited to be a small city or county lawyer,' he said. Jones was surprised Brown was being considered for job at FEMA but figured it wasn't impossible he could have risen high enough in local and state government to be considered for a job directing FEMA operations in Oklahoma.

The agents quickly corrected him. This was a national post in Washington, deputy director of FEMA, the arm of the federal government that prepares for and responds to disasters around the United States.

Jones looked at the agents, 'You're surely kidding?'"

The Daily Telegraph | Patients put down

The Daily Telegraph | Patients put down:
"With gangs of rapists and looters rampaging through wards in the flooded city, senior doctors took the harrowing decision to give massive overdoses of morphine to those they believed could not make it out alive.

One New Orleans doctor told how she 'prayed for God to have mercy on her soul' after she ignored every tenet of medical ethics and ended the lives of patients she had earlier fought to save.

Her heart-rending account has been corroborated by a hospital orderly and by local government officials."

Excellent Post By Jason

This is so sad for me to hear because I was part of the rescue effort in New Orleans, and even though I am quite low on the totem poll, I can confirm the horrible "red-tape" trail that one must attempt to cut through was a waste of time. In 43 hours, I didn't sleep but one hour, and sadly, most of my time was spent pleading and requesting for permission to enter the water in effort to rescue dying people. Well, I was finally able to enter the water and begin searching houses, but only after I ignored direct orders not to. Oddly enough, most of the rescuers who were doing some good were those who, like us, struck out on their own. Sad, sad, sad.

This proves a suspicion I had just last month while attending training at the Homeland Security's Center for Domestic Preparedness in Anniston AL. I attended a wonderful class called ICS (Incident Command System), which teaches one how to work with many different agencies in the wake of a WMD attack or a natural disaster. The class was so amazing that I think I could have offered a couple of tips to ole' Mike Brown... no, I am being serious! This class was as good as I am making it out to be, save one important part. At the graduation ceremony, the head of the school walked two feet in front of me and asked if anyone had any questions. Being the motor mouth that I am, I politely asked the director why this training wasn't aggressively advertised towards all emergency personnel, including mayors and city officials? His response was that they wanted us to spread the word instead of them advertising. My jaw hit the floor! His response told me more than I wanted to know. In my opinion, this was pretty good evidence that Homeland Security, and all the other bullshit that Bush has created, may not be as useful as it appears. Smoke and mirrors... maybe, maybe not.

I guess the point I am trying to make is, why was I in that training room, and not the mayor of New Orleans? It was amazing to me that someone like me, just a senior fireman at an airport, could gain access to some of the best training our country can offer, but the government won't actively pursue the students that it would benefit most. Granted, Joey Durel could go without a problem, but he probably doesn't even know about it, and if he does, he probably couldn't fit it into his schedule. I'm trying to say that although the school I attended has some great things to offer, what good is it if the right people aren't there? I'm %100 positive that Ray Nagin, Kathleen Blanco, and Mike Brown would have worked well together, or at least leaps and bounds better, with this training under their belt.

Billions of dollars have been allocated through WMD grants since 9/11, but is it being put to proper use? I don't think so. I think much of it is getting lost in the system like most of our other monies. So what will happen now? Well, just like Florida after Andrew, all of the necessary officials in Louisiana and Mississippi will now get the training they need, just a day late and a dollar short. Great training programs don’t work until those at the top are exposed to them. Well, we see how important these programs are to Bush. He had a large part in creating and implementing them, but God forbid we actually have to use something like the Incident Command System or the National Response Plan! I’m not trying to bash Bush just to do it, I’m trying to show some inkling of proof that he is more concerned with laughing about his former escapades to New Orleans than actually lifting a finger to save it!

CNN.com - Mayors fault FEMA response - Sep 11, 2005

CNN.com - Mayors fault FEMA response - Sep 11, 2005: "'Clearly the FEMA response has been slow,' Matthew Avara, mayor of Pascagoula, Mississippi, told CNN Saturday night.

'We got a lot of good people on the ground here that are with FEMA and with the state agencies,' he said. 'They wear their badges, and they look good. But unfortunately, we just not have seen all the assets and all the resources that we need in our city.'"

Key Passages From the Previously Posted New York Times Article

Breakdowns Marked Path From Hurricane to Anarchy - New York Times:

-"But Richard A. Falkenrath, a former homeland security adviser in the Bush White House, said the chief federal failure was not anticipating that the city and state would be so compromised. He said the response exposed 'false advertising' about how the government has been transformed four years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks."

-Chief Swain and Colonel Ebbert said in interviews that the first buses arranged by FEMA were diverted elsewhere, and it took several more hours to begin the evacuation. By Friday, the food and the water had run out. Violence also broke out. One Guard soldier was wounded by gunfire and the police confirmed there were attempts to sexually assault at least one woman and a young child, Chief Swain said.

And even though there were clinics at the stadium, Chief Swain said, "Quite a few of the people died during the course of their time here."

By the time the last buses arrived on Saturday, he said, some children were so dehydrated that guardsmen had to carry them out, and several adults died while walking to the buses. State officials said yesterday that a total of 10 people died in the Superdome.

-While those entering the Superdome had been searched for weapons, there was no time to take similar precautions at the convention center, which took in a volatile mix of poor residents, well-to-do hotel guests and hospital workers and patients. Gunfire became so routine that large SWAT teams had to storm the place nearly every night.

Capt. Winn said armed groups of 15 to 25 men terrorized the others, stealing cash and jewelry. He said policemen patrolling the center told him that a number of women had been dragged off by groups of men and gang-raped - and that murders were occurring.

"We had a situation where the lambs were trapped with the lions," Mr. Compass said. "And we essentially had to become the lion tamers."

-And when the SWAT team caught some of the culprits, there was not much it could do. The jails were also flooded, and no temporary holding cells had been set up yet. "We'd take them into another hall and hope they didn't make it back," Capt. Winn said.

One night, Capt. Winn said, the police department even came close to abandoning the convention halls - and giving up on the 15,000 there. He said a captain in charge of the regular police was preparing to evacuate the regular police officers by helicopter when 100 guardsmen rushed over to help restore order.

Before the last people were evacuated that Saturday, several bodies were dumped near a door, and two or three babies died of dehydration, emergency medics have said. State officials said yesterday that 24 people died either inside or just outside the convention center.

The state officials said they did not have any information about how many of those deaths may have been murders. Capt. Winn said that when his team made a final sweep of the building last Monday, it found three bodies, including one with multiple stab wounds.

-The power-sharing arrangement was by design, and as the days wore on, it would prove disastrous. Under the Bush administration, FEMA redefined its role, offering assistance but remaining subordinate to state and local governments. "Our typical role is to work with the state in support of local and state agencies," said David Passey, a FEMA spokesman.

With Hurricane Katrina, that meant the agency most experienced in dealing with disasters and with access to the greatest resources followed, rather than led.

FEMA's deference was frustrating. Rather than initiate relief efforts - buses, food, troops, diesel fuel, rescue boats - the agency waited for specific requests from state and local officials. "When you go to war you don't have time to ask for each round of ammunition that you need," complained Colonel Ebbert, the city's emergency operations director.

-"FEMA would not let the trucks unload," Mr. Vines said in an interview. "The drivers were stuck for several days on the side of the road about 10 miles from Camp Beauregard. FEMA said we had to have a 'tasker number.' What in the world is a tasker number? I have no idea. It's just paperwork, and it's ridiculous."

Senator Blanche Lincoln, Democrat of Arkansas, who interceded on behalf of Mr. Vines, said, "All our Congressional offices have had difficulty contacting FEMA. Governors' offices have had difficulty contacting FEMA." When the state of Arkansas repeatedly offered to send buses and planes to evacuate people displaced by flooding, she said, "they were told they could not go. I don't really know why."

Disarray Marked the Path From Hurricane to Anarchy - New York Times

You can always count on the New York Times. This article is chilling, to say the least.

Disarray Marked the Path From Hurricane to Anarchy - New York Times: "Disarray Marked the Path From Hurricane to Anarchy"

Summing It Up

Stupid Quotes About Hurricane Katrina - Stupidest Hurricane Katrina Quotes: "Stupid Quotes About Hurricane Katrina"

Jazz Fest Will Take Place

The 2006 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival will go on.

“There will be a Jazzfest. We are committed to putting on the 2006 Jazz and Heritage Festival, whatever that may take,” said Quint Davis, producer/director of the springtime musical extravaganza and president of Festival Productions Inc.-New Orleans, which produces the festival with AEG Live, the nation’s second highest-grossing concert promoter.

Details are sketchy at this point.

“We don’t know when, we don’t know where, we don’t know what format,” Davis said. “There will be a Jazzfest in 2006. It will be in Louisiana. It will be as close to New Orleans as we can get it.”

My Response To A Post On Another Blog

This was posted at Sailor in the Desert.

I am awed by the venom spewed here even in the face of facts - Particularly in the face of facts.

Bush must have hid the keys to those 500+ buses that the N'awlins plan called for to be used to evacuate people who didn't have their own way out of town.

Governor Blanco's emergency request was a request for nine million dollars to help out. She refused to permit federalization of the Louisiana Guard. She refused to sign on to a multi-state mutual assistance agreement. She kept the Red Cross from going into the SuperDome to provide food and water to the people there.

Don't believe me? Go to the Red Cross site and see what they have to say.

Yeah, it's all Bush's fault. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Keep repeating it until you believe it.

StinKerr

Your post is so colossally wrong it is almost laughable. You really don't know what you are talking about and are just spouting rhetoric you have heard on FNC (sans Shep Smith), The Rush Limbaugh Show, et al.

I will address your post point by point.

Bush must have hid the keys to those 500+ buses that the N'awlins plan called for to be used to evacuate people who didn't have their own way out of town.

If you have never been to New Orleans, then you may not realize that there is essentially one major route in and out of the city, I-10. With contraflow (look it up), the evacuation routes can handle about 18,000 cars per hour. New Orleans has about 500,000 residents, but when you add up the surrounding areas (Metairie, Kenner, Gretna, etc.) that figure jumps to approximately 1.5 million. This figure does not include tourists, which can range from 20,000 to 250,000 depending on the time of the year. Luckily, because the summers are so hot here, the summer season is a slow time for tourism, so the tourist count was low. All of these people need to get out on the same road. By those figures, it would take approximately 83 hours to get everyone out of the region. But, of course, some people carpool, so the state estimates 72 hours to evacuate the region.

Evacuations take place in stages because of the limited infrastructure to move people. Usually, within 72 hours, the evacuation plan is put into place and the outlying areas are evacuated first. However, with Karina, the storm track was uncertain, even as late as Friday afternoon. By Friday night, most of the forecasting models had Katrina striking the Biloxi/New Orleans region. Governor Blanco was here in Lafayette Friday night (her hometown), but went back to Baton Rouge to start planning in the event that Katrina hit Louisiana. By Saturday morning (48 hours before landfall), the voluntary evacuation was ordered for the New Orleans region and the contraflow plan was enacted. However, the contraflow plan takes at least 8 hours to implement, so it wasn’t actually implemented until Saturday night. People started evacuating. By Sunday morning, it was all but certain that Kartina would strike Louisiana, so, at 9:30 am Mayor Nagin enacted a mandatory evacuation—a first in the history of New Orleans. However, this is United States, and you cannot force people to leave. Also, keep in mind that Katrina moved very fast; faster than most hurricanes.

Sunday was a chaotic day in New Orleans. The city used every available city bus (because that is what they have jurisdiction over—they could not commandeer school buses) and emergency personnel to transport people to shelters of last resort. You see, by that time, it was logistically impossible to round up all the people left in New Orleans (estimated at around 200,000) and transport them out of the city to a safe location by 6:00 p.m. I bet you did not know that they closed the evacuation routes at 6:00 p.m.—12 hours before the storm hit. Why do they do this? Because our evacuation routes are so limited that they turn into a very slow moving parking lot (10 hours to go 70 miles). If you left after 6:00 p.m., you would probably be stranded in your vehicle when the hurricane struck—not a good place to be. So they told everyone that if you could not get out by 6:00, then you could go to the Superdome (or one of the 9 other “shelters of last resort”). And just to demonstrate how hard it is to physically move people safely, when officials moved people into the Superdome, they checked them in, checked their personal property for weapons and liquor and then let them in. By the end, they just started letting people in without checking them because they were running out of time. And that was only, at most, 30,000 people.

So, to say Mayor Nagin failed because he didn’t use those school buses is simply wrong. Legally, he could not use the buses. And if he did take it upon himself to essentially give permission to steal those buses for the public safety, then who would drive them? And if they did have enough drivers, how would you decide whom among the 200,000 people stuck would get a ride. Those school buses could have transported at most 20,000 able-bodied people (and no pets). How do you decide who gets to ride? And then, lets say, they loaded the buses, where would they bring 20,000 people. The closest facility that could handle that many people is the Astrodome (and then the Astrodome closed their doors when they reached 12,000). But no shelters were setup to take that many people in. And the ride to Houston took many people 24 hours (a trip that normally takes 6 hours).

Those critical of Mayor Nagin are trying to use the unused bus issue as an ah-ha. As if he did not try to do all he could to save people. But when you look at it in the context of what really happened, you realize that using those buses was not feasible or safe.

Governor Blanco's emergency request was a request for nine million dollars to help out.

I am not sure where you got the information regarding nine million dollars, but I doubt very seriously anyone knew how much this disaster would cost. Therefore, to ask for nine million dollars is not logical. If you can substantiate that claim, I would like to see it.

She refused to permit federalization of the Louisiana Guard.

Under the National Response Plan, there was no reason to federalize the Louisiana [National] Guard because the Federal Government can bring in troops.

From the NRP:
The Secretary of Defense authorizes Defense Support of Civil Authorities (DSCA) for domestic incidents as directed by the President or when consistent with military readiness operations and appropriate under the circumstances and the law.

The plan states that the Secretary of Defense can deploy the troops under his imminent response authority. (NRP, 42).

More from the NRP:

Imminently serious conditions resulting from any civil emergency may require immediate action to save lives, prevent human suffering, or to mitigate property damage.
When such conditions exist and time does not permit approval from higher headquarters, local military commands and responsible officers from the DOD are authorized by DOD directive and pre-approved by the Secretary of Defense to take necessary action to response to the request of civil authorities. (NPR, 42)

The administration’s own plan told them what they must do and directing troops was one of the things they were mandated to do.

Are you suggesting the failures of the disaster relief happened because the Guard was not federalized? And that if the Guard had been federalized, the response would have been different?

She refused to sign on to a multi-state mutual assistance agreement.

Again, I cannot figure out where you got this information. What is the multi-state mutual assistance agreement?

She kept the Red Cross from going into the SuperDome to provide food and water to the people there.

This is one that is completely unfounded. Governor Blanco did not give this order, the Louisiana Department of Homeland Security did. However, they are directed by the Governor, so the buck must stop with her. The LDHS made the request for two reasons: logistically, they could not get them in and they were afraid it would keep people from evacuating and/or attract people to New Orleans. This is from the Red Cross website:

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

But that isn’t the entire story. Here I will let a story posted today on CNN do the talking (http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/08/katrina.redcross/):

The national president of the American Red Cross, Marsha Evans, first made the request to undertake the operation during a visit to the state on September 1, three days after Hurricane Katrina struck, a local Red Cross chapter official said.

Vic Howell, chief executive officer of the agency's Louisiana Capital Area Chapter, said he renewed that request the next day to Col. Jay Mayeaux, the deputy director of the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.

"We had adequate supplies, the people and the vehicles," Howell said at a news conference in Baton Rouge. "It was the middle of a military rescue operation trying to save lives. We were asked not to go in, and we abided by that recommendation."

Mayeaux, appearing at the news conference with Howell, said he had asked the Red Cross to wait 24 hours for conditions to be "set" for the operation.
"To set up a feeding station to feed a large number of people, you need space. You need to escort the personnel into position. ... And we asked Mr. Howell, and he concurred, to wait 24 hours to go to set that in," Mayeaux said.

By Saturday, however, the point became moot because the large-scale evacuation of the city was under way, Howell and Mayeaux said.
"After that point in time ... their rescue operation was in full force, and they felt they had adequate supplies there to take care of it without (the Red Cross) being introduced into the situation," Howell said. "So we did not go directly into New Orleans."

The National Guard began moving large quantities of food, water and ice into New Orleans and other damaged areas of southeast Louisiana on Wednesday, two days after the hurricane struck and a day before the Red Cross made its request to go in, Mayeaux said.

But, if you will allow me to put words in your mouth, I think the point you are trying to make with each of those points in your second to last paragraph is that Governor Blanco failed. She failed in many respects, but she did everything she was supposed to do under the NRP. Locally, we saw her bewilderment and uncertainty, but according to the record, she followed protocol when getting the Federal Government involved.

Governor Blanco sent a letter requesting that Bush declare a state of emergency in Louisiana and Bush signed it (on 8/27), When he signed the declaration, he obligated the Federal Government and accepted a responsibility to the citizens of Louisiana. Here is part of the text from the declaration presented to President Bush (to read the entire text, go to http://www.gov.state.la.us/Press_Release_detail.asp?id=976):

Under the provisions of Section 501 (a) of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 5121-5206 (Stafford Act), and implemented by 44 CFR § 206.35, I request that you declare an emergency for the State of Louisiana due to Hurricane Katrina for the time period beginning August 26, 2005, and continuing. The affected areas are all the southeastern parishes including the New Orleans Metropolitan area and the mid state Interstate I-49 corridor and northern parishes along the I-20 corridor that are accepting the thousands of citizens evacuating from the areas expecting to be flooded as a result of Hurricane Katrina.

In response to the situation I have taken appropriate action under State law and directed the execution of the State Emergency Plan on August 26, 2005 in accordance with Section 501 (a) of the Stafford Act. A State of Emergency has been issued for the State in order to support the evacuations of the coastal areas in accordance with our State Evacuation Plan and the remainder of the state to support the State Special Needs and Sheltering Plan.

Pursuant to 44 CFR § 206.35, I have determined that this incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the State and affected local governments, and that supplementary Federal assistance is necessary to save lives, protect property, public health, and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a disaster. I am specifically requesting emergency protective measures, direct Federal Assistance, Individual and Household Program (IHP) assistance, Special Needs Program assistance, and debris removal.

And here is the part of the Stafford Act that enforces the declaration and transfers responsibility to the Federal Government:

§ 5170a. GENERAL FEDERAL ASSISTANCE {Sec. 402}

In any major disaster, the President may--

1. direct any Federal agency, with or without reimbursement, to utilize its authorities and the resources granted to it under Federal law (including personnel, equipment, supplies, facilities, and managerial, technical, and advisory services) in support of State and local assistance efforts;

2. coordinate all disaster relief assistance (including voluntary assistance) provided by Federal agencies, private organizations, and State and local governments;

3. provide technical and advisory assistance to affected State and local governments for--

1. the performance of essential community services;
2. issuance of warnings of risks and hazards;
3. public health and safety information, including dissemination of such information;
4. provision of health and safety measures; and
5. management, control, and reduction of immediate threats to public health and safety; and

4. assist State and local governments in the distribution of medicine, food, and other consumable supplies, and emergency assistance.

What does all of that mean? It means that the administration own National Response Plan was enacted. And under the NRP, the government has all kinds of responsibilities. They can direct troops, initiate response to disasters, respond to disasters, etc.

Sure, Bush supporters want to shield the President and that is understandable. But when the administration does not follow its own plan to safeguard American citizens, when do his supporters start questioning his ability? The real question is if terrorists had blown up the levies and flooded New Orleans, would the Federal response been any different?

National Response Plan

"National Response Plan"

Read this.

FEMA Mission Statement

This comes from the FEMA website.

FEMA: About FEMA:

"On March 1, 2003, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) became part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). FEMA's continuing mission within the new department is to lead the effort to prepare the nation for all hazards and effectively manage federal response and recovery efforts following any national incident. FEMA also initiates proactive mitigation activities, trains first responders, and manages the National Flood Insurance Program and the U.S. Fire Administration."

Louisiana, We Care About Your Well Being

Rocky Mountain News: State:

"U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., asked House Speaker Dennis Hastert not to send federal disaster aid to officials in Louisiana, calling state and local government there incompetent and corrupt.

In a letter to Hastert on Wednesday, Tancredo urged the speaker to create a 'bipartisan select committee' of members of Congress to oversee federal disaster spending in Louisiana. "Given the abysmal failure of state and local officials in Louisiana to plan adequately for or respond to the effects of Hurricane Katrina on the city of New Orleans, and given the long history of public corruption in Louisiana, I hope the House will refrain from directly appropriating any funds . . . to either the state of Louisiana or the city of New Orleans," Tancredo wrote.

Tancredo lashed out at New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco, both Democrats, as having "demonstrated mind-boggling incompetence in their lack of planning for and response to this disaster."

He issued a milder rebuke to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, accusing it of "bureaucratic ineptitude."

"It's a shame. Instead of offering constructive advice and assistance, a United States congressman is wasting our time with stereotypes and accusations," Brian Richardson, a spokesman for Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., told The Associated Press. "Louisiana will rebuild with or without Mr. Tancredo's help."

No Truer Words Spoken

Words of Power: Words of Power #1: Truths Salvaged from Post-Katrina Debacle:

"On Thursday morning, 9-01-05, I was standing in SFO, waiting for a flight, and watching a live CNN broadcast from outside of the Convention Center in New Orleans. The camera panned along a long line of exhausted, despondent Americans. They spoke directly to the nation, gesturing emphatically, and pleading for rescue, with their dead and dying neighbors sprawled out among them. The CNN reporter wondered aloud why there were no emergency personnel with megaphones, moving through the crowd, offering information or at least reassurance.

“It is Thursday,” I exclaimed to everyone within ear shot, “It is Thursday already.” It had been four days since Katrina hit land in New Orleans. Sadly, most of my fellow travelers stared off into space, with their backs to the disgrace being documented on the TV monitors.

The next day, 9-2-05, five days after Katrina’s land fall, the Los Angeles Times front page headline read: “Relief Effort Begins in New Orleans.”

Security is misunderstood. Both by those who implement it only to restrict, limit and control, and by those who resist it because they see it only as a means to restrict, limit and control. The truest synonym for security is protection. And protection flows from love. Yes, love. If you love something or someone, you feel responsibility for it, you want to nourish it, and protect it.

Security (i.e., protection), in its deepest sense, is an aspect of stewardship.
What happened to the people of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina would not have been allowed to occur if the Bush administration’s homeland security and crisis management capabilities were grounded in love and responsibility. Katrina caused the devastation, but it was human ignorance, at best, or calculated indifference, at worst, that caused the debacle. The failure of two levees caused the flooding of New Orleans, but a failure of conscience and character at the highest levels of the U.S. government caused its descent into a hell-realm of misery and fear."

Olbermann's Time Line

Crooks and Liars: "Olbermann's Time Line

Keith put together a video time line that jumps back and forth between different days and shows the spin by Chertoff and others coupled with the reality on the ground.

Video-WMP

Video-QT

As we all know, Bush's idiotic claim that nobody anticipated the levees would be breached is exposed immediately. Just think about it. How in God's name could our President say something so false that is so well documented on national TV?"

Republicans Turning on Bush?

The Blog | David Corn: Katrina: Kristol Admits Bush Is Often Weak on Execution | The Huffington Post:

"My favorite (in a perverse way) Katrina-related quote of recent days came from William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard and cheerleader-in-chief for the war in Iraq. He told The Washington Post, 'Almost every Republican I have spoken with is disappointed' in Bush's response to the disaster. 'He is a strong president...but he has never really focused on the importance of good execution."

Controlling the Story

From Talking Points Memo:

"Now comes this post from Brian Williams, which suggests a general effort to bar reporters from access to many of the key points in the city.

Take a moment to note what's happening here: these are the marks of repressive government, which mixes inefficiency with authoritarianism. The crew that couldn't get key aid on the scene in time last week is coming in in force now. And one of the key missions appears to be cutting off public information about what's happening in the city.

This is a domestic, natural disaster. Absent specific cases where members of the press would interfere or get in the way of some particular clean up operation, or perhaps demolition work, there is simply no reason why credentialed members of the press should not be able to cover everything that is happening in that city.

Think about it."

Reply to Semper Fi

Semper Fi posted this comment on ofsomesignificance last night:

You may want to take a look at Section III: Roles and Responsibilities of the 2004 National Response Plan. When you do, you will see the culpability of Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco in the New Orleans debacle. That's not to excuse Bush, Brown, and the Feds for too little, too late, but Section III clearly does put the onus on the mayor and the governor to act first.

And here is my reply:

Semper Fi:

I appreciate your comments, but you are taking things out of context. Go to http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/9/4/171811/1974 to read this:

CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE AND KATRINA?
By Larry Johnson

The provocative title is intentional. Why did the Bush Administration fail to act according to the National Response Plan they created in December of 2004 to deal with an incident like Katrina?

What do you do when the words on the paper don't match the action in the field? People are dying today in New Orleans because of the failure to provide immediate aid are dead in part because of the negligence of Michael Chertoff. That is a harsh judgment, but if you will take time to read the National Response Plan that was signed into effect in December of 2004 there is no other reasonable conclusion.
The current effort by the Bush Administration to blame the victims in Louisiana and Mississippi is bad enough, but they are in big trouble once Americans take the time to understand that they the Administration ignored it's own plan for dealing with a threat like Katrina. Why did they fail to implement the plan until it was too late to save lives along the Gulf Coast?

Don't take my word for it, read the plan yourself. You can download it at http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/NRPbaseplan.pdf.

The National Response Plan was accepted and implemented by Bush Administration in December 2004. According to the PREFACE, President Bush, "directed the development of a new National Response Plan (NRP) to align Federal coordination structures, capabilities, and resources into a unified, all discipline, and all-hazards approach to domestic incident management. . . .The end result is vastly improved coordination among Federal, State, local, and tribal organizations to help save lives and protect America's communities by increasing the speed, effectiveness, and efficiency of incident management."

Sep 04, 2005 -- 05:18:11 PM EST
Efforts by Chertoff and other Administration spinmeisters to pin the blame on the delayed response on State and local authorities does not hold water. Although the NRP recognizes that State and local authorities have a responsibility to ask for help, the NRP correctly provides a provision to take proactive steps to deal with a threat. On page 43 of the NRP the section is titled, "Proactive Federal Response to Catastrophic Events" (which I have copied and pasted below:

The NRP establishes policies, procedures, and mechanisms for proactive Federal response to catastrophic events. A catastrophic event is any natural or manmade incident, including terrorism, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the population, infrastructure, environment, economy, national morale, and/or government functions. A catastrophic event could result in sustained national impacts over a prolonged period of time; almost immediately exceeds resources normally available to State, local, tribal, and private-sector authorities in the impacted area; and significantly interrupts governmental operations and emergency services to such an extent that national security could be threatened. All catastrophic events are Incidents of National Significance.

Implementation of Proactive Federal Response Protocols

Protocols for proactive Federal response are most likely to be implemented for catastrophic events involving chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high-yield explosive weapons of mass destruction, or large magnitude earthquakes or other natural or technological disasters in or near heavily populated areas.

Guiding Principles for Proactive Federal Response

Guiding principles for proactive Federal response include the following:
■ The primary mission is to save lives; protect critical infrastructure, property, and the environment; contain the event; and preserve national security.
■ Standard procedures regarding requests for assistance may be expedited or, under extreme circumstances, suspended in the immediate aftermath of an event of
catastrophic magnitude.
■ Identified Federal response resources will deploy and begin necessary operations as required to commence life-safety activities.
■ Notification and full coordination with States will occur, but the coordination process must not delay or impede the rapid deployment and use of critical resources. States are urged to notify and coordinate with local governments regarding a proactive Federal response.
■ State and local governments are encouraged to conduct collaborative planning with the Federal Government as a part of "steady-state" preparedness for catastrophic incidents.

Implementation Mechanisms for Proactive

Federal Response to Catastrophic Events
The NRP Catastrophic Incident Supplement (described in the Catastrophic Incident Annex) addresses resource and procedural implications of catastrophic events to ensure the rapid and efficient delivery of resources and assets, including special teams, equipment, and supplies that provide critical lifesaving support and incident containment capabilities. These assets may be so specialized or costly that they are either not available or are in insufficient quantities in most localities.

The procedures outlined in the NRP Catastrophic Incident Supplement are based on the following:

■ The pre-identification of Federal assets and capabilities;
■ The strategic location of pre-identified assets for rapid deployment; and
■ The use of pre-scripted mission assignments for Stafford Act declarations, or individual agency authority and funding, to expedite deployment upon notification by DHS (in accordance with procedures established in the NRP Catastrophic Incident Supplement) of a potential catastrophic event.

Agencies responsible for these assets will keep DHS apprised, through the HSOC, of their ongoing status and location until the JFO is established. Upon arrival at the scene, Federal assets will coordinate with the Unified Command, the SFLEO, and the JFO (or its forward elements) when established. Demobilization processes, including full coordination with the JFO Coordination Group, are initiated either when the mission is completed or when it is determined the magnitude of the event does not warrant continued use of the asset.

While the Bush Administration is to be commended for coming up with a plan for dealing with terrorism and large scale disasters, it must be condemned for its abject failure to implement the NRP. And, specific heads must role starting with Michael Chertoff and the head of FEMA.

You cite Section III of the NPR, but Section III does not put the onus on the Mayor and Governor, but on the Federal Government. Here is the key paragraph under the heading Federal Government/Homeland Security:

The Homeland Security Act of 2002 established DHS to prevent terrorist attacks within the United States; reduce the vulnerability of the United States to terrorism, natural disasters, and other emergencies; and minimize the damage and assist in the recovery from terrorist attacks, natural disasters, and other emergencies. The act also designates DHS as “a focal point regarding natural and manmade crises and emergency planning.”

Finally, Blanco sent a letter requesting that Bush declare a state of emergency in Louisiana and Bush signed it (on 8/27), When he signed the declaration, he obligated the Federal Government and accepted a responsibility to the citizens of Louisiana. Here is part of the text from the declaration presented to President Bush (to read the entire text, go to http://www.gov.state.la.us/Press_Release_detail.asp?id=976):

Under the provisions of Section 501 (a) of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 5121-5206 (Stafford Act), and implemented by 44 CFR § 206.35, I request that you declare an emergency for the State of Louisiana due to Hurricane Katrina for the time period beginning August 26, 2005, and continuing. The affected areas are all the southeastern parishes including the New Orleans Metropolitan area and the mid state Interstate I-49 corridor and northern parishes along the I-20 corridor that are accepting the thousands of citizens evacuating from the areas expecting to be flooded as a result of Hurricane Katrina.

In response to the situation I have taken appropriate action under State law and directed the execution of the State Emergency Plan on August 26, 2005 in accordance with Section 501 (a) of the Stafford Act. A State of Emergency has been issued for the State in order to support the evacuations of the coastal areas in accordance with our State Evacuation Plan and the remainder of the state to support the State Special Needs and Sheltering Plan.

Pursuant to 44 CFR § 206.35, I have determined that this incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the State and affected local governments, and that supplementary Federal assistance is necessary to save lives, protect property, public health, and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a disaster. I am specifically requesting emergency protective measures, direct Federal Assistance, Individual and Household Program (IHP) assistance, Special Needs Program assistance, and debris removal.

And here is the part of the Stafford Act that enforces the declaration and transfers responsibility to the Federal Government:

§ 5170a. GENERAL FEDERAL ASSISTANCE {Sec. 402}

In any major disaster, the President may--

1. direct any Federal agency, with or without reimbursement, to utilize its authorities and the resources granted to it under Federal law (including personnel, equipment, supplies, facilities, and managerial, technical, and advisory services) in support of State and local assistance efforts;

2. coordinate all disaster relief assistance (including voluntary assistance) provided by Federal agencies, private organizations, and State and local governments;

3. provide technical and advisory assistance to affected State and local governments for--
1. the performance of essential community services;
2. issuance of warnings of risks and hazards;
3. public health and safety information, including dissemination of such information;
4. provision of health and safety measures; and
5. management, control, and reduction of immediate threats to public health and safety; and

4. assist State and local governments in the distribution of medicine, food, and other consumable supplies, and emergency assistance.

Granted, it was incumbent on Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco to lead during this crisis, but I ask you, what more could they have done. They told the Federal Government that they could not handle this crisis alone and that under the provisions set forth by the Federal Government, the Federal Government would have to step in.

Now, again my question to you is what else the Mayor and Governor could have done?