(I’m breaking my blogging break because this is just too important to miss.)
For all of you who keep blaming Bush and trying to protect Blanco, I’m afraid I have some bad news for you. Blanco got caught on tape by CNN admitting she did not ask for Federal Troops. When she didn’t think the cameras were live, she made the startling admission to her press secretary.
AND that’s not even the worst of it….
Why didn’t she ask for federal troops? As Blanco explained to her press secretary as she wiped away tears, if troops came in, they would “put good people in jail.”
She was more worried about the “poor looters” than she was the victims. This is outrageous.
SHE WEEPS AT THE THOUGHT TO THROWING LOOTERS IN JAIL!
Then she tells her press secretary, “I really need to call for the military, I mean, I really should have started that in the first call.” BUSTED!
When Miles O’Brien asks her what day it was she asked for Federal troops, she tried desperately to stammer her way thru the answer like a 9th grade foreign language student trying to mumble their way the the oral part of a final exam. When pressed for an answer, Governor Blanco breaks down and has an Admiral Stockdale moment, replying:
“I don’t even know what day it is.”
Thank goodness The Political Teen got the damning video.
While she was sheading tears over the poor looters going to jail, they were destroying not only the city itself but its reputation worldwide. Incompetent does not even begin to describe this woman. I truly hope this woman runs for reelection… I’ll personally buy the air time to play this video. If you ever doubt the importance of your vote, watch this video.
Related Update: If you missed Mary Landrieu getting absolutely taken apart by questions she can’t answer on FOXNews Sunday, The Political Teen has that one too. It’s a don’t miss.
“This president fabricated evidence to illegally invade another country that hadn’t done anything to us, and he didn’t even come close to getting impeached. “
Really? He fabricated the evidence? Out of what? Don’t you think that argument is kind of stupid?
What you are saying is that he fabricated evidence of WMDs that he knew didn’t exist, knowing full well that when we got there they wouldn’t exist and that we would never find them. So if he was willing to fabricate evidence of non-existent WMDs why didn’t he just go ahead and fabricate some WMDs for us to “find”?
Liberals make it sound like America is suddenly against Bush only a year after re-electing him. I don’t care what the poles say. 46% of all statistics and poles are made up.
You conservatives are flailing about like fish out of water. The more you try to fight the unrefutable federal failure, the deeper hole you dig for your party. I can’t wait until 2006 when the people can hold Bush and the GOP responsible for their negligent manslaughter.
Think I’m wrong? You have lost all moderates, and you are losing (thinking) conservatives every day.
Your president is an incompetent liar with a depraved indifference to human life. When you defend his acts, you are complicit in the depravity.
5 hours ago I challenged people to come up with some specific examples of the failures by FEMA. No one has bothered to provide a single one.
So Jay the ball is in your court. Provide some concrete specific examples of the irrefutable federal failure.
P.S. If the President has a depraved indifference to human life what does it say about the Mayor of New Orleans who doesn’t bother trying to evacuate his poor black constituents from a Category 5 hurricane? Instead he tells them to stay in the city and that they are on their own for food and water.
What a great humanitarian he is.
Eric:
FEMA and FEMA leadership failures:
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/84aa35cc-1da8-11da-b40b-00000e2511c8.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/08/20050829-1.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/katrina_disaster_response;_ylt=Ak_rIryMDAzLga9hk7jGKdms0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ-
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/national/nationalspecial/05blame.html?ex=1283572800&en=1d14ebfbd942a7d0&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0910katrina-bush.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/08/images/20050829-5_p082905pm-0260-515h.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/08/20050830-1.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/08/20050831-2.html
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05246/565143.stm
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05246/565143.stm
http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/site/premium/access-registered.intercept
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-050902daley,1,2011979.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true
http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/WWLBLOG.ac3fcea.html
http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=18470
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/08/31/katrina/main808193.shtml
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breakingtp/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_Times-Picayune/archives/2005_08_31.html#075561
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/09/01/BL2005090100915.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4828771
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/09/ted-koppel-rips-rips-rips-michael.html
http://www.rense.com/general67/femm.htm
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/5/105538/7048
I shouldn’t have to do this work for you. Especially now. Listen, I truly think your loyalty to your party and your fear of being “wrong” is messing with your better judgement. Rove’s Plame leak, Katrina’s failure, the unjustified war, how much does it take? At some point, other values must become paramount. Love for your fellow man, responsible government, war only when justified by heavy necessity…values like that.
The GOP is playing with your values, pelple. Republican does not equal Christian, they are mutually exclusive. The biggest success of the GOP cult is to trick the convenient and useful dumb-christian population that you have to be conservative to be “clean” and “good.” Ask yourself, who is the God of the political right? Bush? Supply-side economics? The reason I ask is because it certainly isn’t the God I worship, and it’s not Jesus, open the bible to find out (I don’t want to do that work for you as well).
Now ask yourself, does the GOP care about me, or my vote? Then ask yourself does the GOP have my interests in mind, or the interests of the rich and corporate? What is the role of government, to provide safety, security and a thriving economy, or to give money to corporations and rich cronies?
Think critically, I beg of you, because you are being manipulated.
………………
Oh, and by the way, the Govener asked the president for federal help on August 28th, the ball was then in the President’s court (to use your term).
http://gov.louisiana.gov/Disaster%20Relief%20Request.pdf
This is the last link I will provide, do this work yourselves. Find your way out of the little box you live in, I beg you.
It is absolutly amazing that I am even having this conversation.
Eric:
I’ll let the Mayor answer your question.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46269
FEMA and FEMA leadership failures:
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/84aa35cc-1da8-11da-b40b-00000e2511c8.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/08/20050829-1.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/katrina_disaster_response;_ylt=Ak_rIryMDAzLga9hk7jGKdms0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ-
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/national/nationalspecial/05blame.html?ex=1283572800&en=1d14ebfbd942a7d0&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0910katrina-bush.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/08/images/20050829-5_p082905pm-0260-515h.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/08/20050830-1.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/08/20050831-2.html
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05246/565143.stm
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05246/565143.stm
http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/site/premium/access-registered.intercept
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-050902daley,1,2011979.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true
http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/WWLBLOG.ac3fcea.html
http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=18470
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/08/31/katrina/main808193.shtml
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breakingtp/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_Times-Picayune/archives/2005_08_31.html#075561
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/09/01/BL2005090100915.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4828771
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/09/ted-koppel-rips-rips-rips-michael.html
http://www.rense.com/general67/femm.htm
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/5/105538/7048
I shouldn’t have to do this work for you. Especially now. Listen, I truly think your loyalty to your party and your fear of being “wrong” is messing with your better judgment. Rove’s Plame leak, Katrina’s failure, the unjustified war, how much does it take? At some point, other values must become paramount. Love for your fellow man, responsible government, war only when justified by heavy necessity…values like that.
FEMA and FEMA leadership failures:
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/84aa35cc-1da8-11da-b40b-00000e2511c8.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/08/20050829-1.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/katrina_disaster_response;_ylt=Ak_rIryMDAzLga9hk7jGKdms0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ-
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/national/nationalspecial/05blame.html?ex=1283572800&en=1d14ebfbd942a7d0&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0910katrina-bush.html
Moderator:
Please let Eric read my post. I believe it is very important for him to read.
Eric,
Go to http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/9/15/1328/63393#222 to read my post, search for “HERE ERIC”
I don’t care what the poles say. 46% of all statistics and poles are made up.
I live in Chicago, and I know a great Poles, and none of them are made up.
a great many Poles, rather.
The Wizbang colors make it impossible to get your spelling and grammar right in some freaky psychological way. Am I the only one who feels that way about this blue, black, and white scheme?
Eric – oh lord, I don’t want to get into the details of the obvious Bush/Powell/Condi lies about the intel leading up to the war. I would just refer you to the Downing Street Memos that have firmly established once and ofr all that the “intel was being fixed around the policy”. And also to Bush’s demonstrably fallacious report in the State of the Union that Saddam was seeking uranium in Africa – the State Dept had advised the admin *months* before the SOTU address that this was false, and yet BushCo still went with it knowing that it was a lie. Beyond that, I’d merely advise you to get your bloody head out of your arse and open your eyes.
The point is that if Bush hasn’t been impeached for all the really consequential life/death lies he’s told (as opposed to say, inconsequential lies about an extramarital affair), then it is beyond imaginable that he’d be impeached for responding quickly to an emergency. You’re just reaching for straws – it’s really quite amusing.
First off Jay thank you for responding. You went to a lot of trouble doing all of those links and I commend you for taking the time to do it. I went to every link you provided and read each of them as best I could. Some are very good and frankly, some are worthless in my opinion.
For example,
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/09/ted-koppel-rips-rips-rips-michael.html
This is some guy paraphrasing a conversation that doesn’t delineate between his edits and actual conversation.
Having read through the links can I fairly summarize the failures as this. Slow response, and FEMA turned away trucks.
Again, what constitutes a slow response? What is the benchmark to measure a slow response to a fast response? What constitutes a fast response to the most devastating hurricane to hit the U.S.?
Remember, FEMA has to deal with the entire crisis, not just New Orleans. The hurricane devastated 90,000 square miles over 5 states. New Orleans is 350 square miles out of 90,000.
FEMA was working the problem before the storm hit. FEMA sent 7 tractor trailers to the SuperDome on the Sunday before the storm. The Bataan was on station to ride out the storm and was doing S&R immediately following the storm as was the Coast Guard. Relief supplies were rolling as the storm passed.
Still it took several days for aid to get there in mass. How would they get there? Here are some aerial pictures of the devastation of the storm.
As you can see many of the bridges are GONE, roads are washed out, there are trees in the road, etc. Many obstacles needed to be crossed for the relief supplies to get anywhere, and that takes time.
Again I repeat, FEMA has to deal with the entire scope of the problem. Look at the devastation to Mississippi. While people were trapped and dying in New Orleans, people were trapped and dying in Mississippi too. FEMA has to deal with them as well.
Yet Mississippi has much fewer fatalities did not experience wide spread looting and violence, is much better organized and is recovering very quickly. Why? Because their State and Local governments didn’t fall down on the job.
What about the stories that “FEMA” turned away the aid trucks. Question, are we absolutely positive that it was FEMA that turned away all of those aid trucks? We know now that the State DHS turned away the Red Cross aid trucks. Is it possible that the reporters have repeated a simple mistake of confusing the State DHS with the Federal DHS? And it was the State DHS that turned away all of those aid trucks?
Is that a possibility? Has FEMA confirmed that they were the ones that turned away the aid trucks? The state and Red Cross confirm that they kept the Red Cross out. What about the rest? If FEMA is the ones that turned away the trucks then yes I would call that a failure. If the state turned away the trucks and not FEMA, would you call that a failure on the State’s part?
I don’t think I am protecting the Fed out of blind loyalty. I keep hearing that the Fed fell down on the job.
But I still haven’t seen a failure comparable to the Mayor and Governor not evacuating the city of New Orleans in a timely manner. To call for an evacuation of the city 23 hours before the hurricane when your own plan calls for 72 is a failure.
Or the disgraceful act of telling people to go to the SuperDome and that food and water is their problem. When you have enough buses to transport ALL of them out of the city less than 2 miles from the SuperDome. No drivers is a STUPID STUPID LAME EXCUSE. That is a crimially negligent excuse. One phone call from the governor would get 500 National Guard troopers to drive those buses in a matter of hours.
Those are the kinds of failures I’m talking about.
Aaron your right I forgot all about the Downing Street Memo. The smoking gun which says that the “Intelligence and data were being fixed around the policy.”
The key word to fix which as the American Heritage Dictionary defines it as
11. To influence the outcome or actions of by improper or unlawful means: fix a prizefight; fix a jury.
But wait the Memo is a British Memo so just to be sporting maybe we should use the Oxford English Dictionary just to be sporting, old chap.
Aaron your right I forgot all about the Downing Street Memo. The smoking gun which says that the “Intelligence and data were being fixed around the policy.”
The key word to fix which as the American Heritage Dictionary defines it as
11. To influence the outcome or actions of by improper or unlawful means: fix a prizefight; fix a jury.
But wait the Memo is a British Memo so just to be sporting maybe we should use the Oxford English Dictionary just to be sporting, old chap.
Which says
1. Verb. attach or position securely
Wait that’s not the same thing. Let’s replace the word fixed with attached.
“Intelligence and data were being attached around the policy.”
That doesn’t sound quite the same. I wonder. Would a British citizen be using the American slang term for to fix or the proper English term for to fix? I wonder?
Eric Eric Eric – you are a walking GOP talking points memo!
Of course I am well aware of the Right’s lame attempts to dismiss the memo by quibbling about the meaning of “Fixed” in British vs American English. That BS was peddled straight out from Karl Rove’s desk to Robin Niblet, and then passed around ad nauseum on the Sunday talk show circuit by the administration’s designated liar-in-chief, Condisleazy Rice.
But it is all a lot of pathetically lame horseshit meant for the truely brainwashed. Here’s what the BBC journalist who broke the story had to say about your dearly held confabulation:
“There are number of people asking about fixed and its meaning. This is a real joke. I do not know anyone in the UK who took it to mean anything other than fixed as in fixed a race, fixed an election, fixed the intelligence. If you fix something, you make it the way you want it. The intelligence was fixed and as for the reports that said this was one British official. Pleeeaaassee! This was the head of MI6. How much authority do you want the man to have? He has just been to Washington, he has just talked to George Tenet. He said the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. That translates in clearer terms as the intelligence was being cooked to match what the administration wanted it to say to justify invading Iraq. Fixed means the same here as it does there.”
Eric, don’t you get tired of peddling lame GOP talking points? Face it – the Bushies cooked this shit up, and no quibbling over definitions is going to hide the stark truth.
You might want to expand your critical thinking skills a bit… just a wee bit.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200506170003
Aaron dude, I may be peddling Right wing talking points, but so are you peddling Left wing talking points. Aren’t you the pot calling the kettle black?
All your article did was conclude that it COULD be either interpretation. Show me where it conclusively says that this was the meaning. The only way that you could do that is if the author of the memo said this is what my meaning was. And I didn’t see him quoted anywhere in the article.
Everything is else is based on interpretation. All you showed was that it could be interpreted either way. The word fixed has BOTH meanings and BOTH could be used validly in the sentence.
So how can you be 100% certain that one usage is correct and the other usage is wrong?
Have you ever heard of a concept in law called “beyond a reasonable doubt”?
I know that this will not get posted but at least the person reading it before they dump it into the Cyber space Forbidden Zone will agree…
Landrieu..what a fucking cunt!
I usually am a reasonable open minded kind person
who never talks this way but this cunt just gets to me. I apologize:)
Eric my man! Get your head out of your ass and think for a minute! Forget what you’ve read on some wing-nut website and tell me the God’s honest truth: do you really truly believe that “fixed” in this case meant anything other than the Bushies were tailoring the intel to fit their preconceived agenda to invade? Come on, be real with me now. Is the idea that Bush just lied his ass off really just so hard for you to even contemplate that you are willing to believe in any alternate explanation, no matter how ridiculously far-fetched? I guess it is true what they say: the more audacious the lie, the more willing everyone is to believe it, since to believe otherwise is just too scary to contemplate.
Let me ask you this way: what more would Bush have to do for you to flip over to not supporting him anymore? Is there *anything*? Somehow I think Rove could convince you of anything, so long as that explanation preserved your view of the Dear Leader. Black is White, Up is Down. (And “fixed” means some other obscure thing in the UK – OK?)
So now you want to talk about reasonable doubt?? Are you kidding? How very un-Republican of you. There is a reasonable doubt that “fixed” didn’t mean “manipulated” in the Downing Memos in the same way that there is reasonable doubt that OJ didn’t off Nicole, and that there is reasonable doubt that Clinton didn’t have sex with that woman.
Aaron, Aaron, Aaron
Sometimes when something should be done, like wiping out Radical Islamofacist regimes and there is no convient way to do it but lie or tweak facts, then I see nothing wrong with tweaking those facts. You know what..sure its about oil..and also about do you want the regime that allows nit pickers like you to be able to reproduce to freely spew your ..”I’m a Democrat so I’m going to question and undermine everything freely as is my God given right”..to win? Or do you want the regime, that if they win and you start spewing your vindictive Democratic trash, “just chops off your freaking head for even voicing any independent thoughts not sanctioned by your freindly neighborhodd Mullah?”
Hell, you’d probably convert. That is the option they gave during a few of the Crusades isn’t it..convert or die? Maybe what you secretly want to do is make your wife wear a Burka so you can beat her with a stick?
A totally different interesting concept..why don’t we all work together to win the war first..then play esoteric bullshit blame games later? Hell maybe if we win, by 2008 we can elect a Democrat so they can apologize for winning the war to really win the hearts and minds of the Middle East.
That we are not fighting a WW2 style war is very worrisome to me. The only way that the Pax Romana
lasted 250 years was because they killed off all their worst enemies and defeated them soooo badly that the survivors said…”Gee, lets not do that again!”
Unless we are not willing to really defeat these people and their allies wherever they are we really should not be fighting this war and by that I mean Mecca should have been destroyed within the first hour that we found out that they were Saudi’s after 9/11.
That we haven’t reduced Damascus to rubble by now is also beyond me, not to mention siding with India to neutralize Pakistans nuclear capability before the radicals seize it. You bleeding heart Democrats always like to point out that somehow, someway, we have brought this on our selves.
As Winston Churchill once said (and I paraphrase) Democracy is the worst form of government on earth..except for all the rest.
Now Aaron, if deep down you are a Kumbaya type of guy, I respect that…life is inviolate and all that happy crap. Hell! I’ll even help my country to kill a few radicals to preserve your right to feel that we are wrong. Hell, maybe you’ve fought in a war and are sickened by the carnage and oppose it on humanitarian grounds and like
Mr. Rodgers have donned a sweater….again I’ll help my country kill a few more islamofacists to preserve that right and feeling of yours.
I don’t believe in bringing Democracy to
people who hate us …and oh by the way..something
that all Democrats conviently forget is that
Gulf War 1 did not end..legally it was a UN brokered (enforced by us and allies) CEASEFIRE.
Theoretically in that case, any violation by Saddams regime such as shooting at planes for 10 years or so is a technical violation which then theoretically allows us to go straight back to a hot one without having to even say..By your leave..to the UN or anybody else for that matter. Bush’s real mistake was being nice and going to the House and Senate and requesting votes, debates etc. etc. etc. , a freaking waste of time to me.
Clinton was too busy getting blow jobs and ignoring the fact that they were trying to blow up the Trade centers, destroying embassies
and generally being the childish 6th century warrior culture religion that they haven’t grown out of yet, to do anything meaningful.
When your head prophet consulted reguarly
with his..Generals..and compare that to Jesus
and the Disciples, I think I’ll take Christianity.
Holy Cow..that makes me a Kumbaya type deep down too!
Anyways, if i’m not mistaken in the Crusade vein its: Christians 7, Muslims 4? Or actually 7 to 3
since how hard is it to beat a bunch of pesky children?
Its the two miute warning Aaron..whose side are you really rooting for? I am always:
During peace…My country Right!
During War…My country Right OR Wrong!
If we lose this one Aaron start teaching your children or grandchildren:
1) Which way is East
2) How to properly wear a suicide belt to
defeat the next group the Mullahs don’t like
3) To sit in the Lotus position bobbing up and
down for hours memorizing the Koran, it
might be the only education they’ll get
4) In the late great war with the Great Satan
Daddy/Grandpa helped osama to win
Enjoy!
P.S. Don’t use wool for the female childrens
Burkas, it scatches to much
Let’s be clear here, one way or the other you are talking about “did she follow the correct bureaucratic procedure”.
To this I say, “who the hell cares!!” This was a gigantic powerful hurricane that we had plenty of advance warning for, and the law is clear, the President could send troops and assistance with or without Blanco’s approval, whether or not she requested it, and whether or not she filled out form x in compliance with articles y and z of q.
Get real, the next time a natural disaster of this proportion or a terrorist attack hits the US, possibly where you live, what do you care more about; whether the government quickly responds to the immediate needs of the people affected, or whether the proper paperwork has been filed.
Remember your answer, because it may come back to haunt you.
Someone needs to hold Gov. Blanco head under the floodwater in her state. She was responsible for her state and she is the one to blame … not Bush not Brown, not FEMA…
Most people saw what I saw, incompetence times three. We watched in horror to the governor’s response to the Federal Aid assistance she denied, while her people were dying. I say get drowning not good enough for her or the mayor.
The state of Lousiana would do well without such incompetent individuals as Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin. May God have mercy on their lying souls.