i believe the national enquirer

even if it's the tiniest part of the story that is true, to get something like this out of fantasy, well, just isn't possible.

bush is back on the bottle. so what. he lies about everything else, so why would we want to believe him when he says he's not boozin again.

The National Enquirer is reporting that the president's troubles have literally driven him to drink. "Faced with the biggest crisis of his political life, President Bush has hit the bottle again," the Enquirer says.

As you might expect, the sourcing for the story is a little vague. In an odd sort of grammatical construction, the Enquirer says that "family sources have told" -- to whom, it doesn't say -- that the president was "caught by First Lady Laura downing a shot of booze" in Crawford, Texas, when "he learned of the hurricane disaster." "One insider" says that Bush "apparently" reached for a "Texas-sized shot of straight whiskey" when water flooded into New Orleans. Another "Washington source" says: "The sad fact is that he has been sneaking drinks for weeks now. Laura may have only just caught him -- but the word is his drinking has been going on for a while in the capital. He's been in a pressure cooker for months."

--salon

so there ya have it. the national enquirer, backed up by salon, makes for an interesting case, especially against a proven liar.

wonder why tuition is so high?

take a look at American University. a fine read into the backsides of what the leaders of our learning institutions do for themselves at the expense of others. a horrifying tale of utter ego-maniac-ness.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 - Benjamin Ladner, the president of American University, who has been suspended pending an investigation of expenses that he charged to the college, has agreed to accept a more modest contract if the board votes to return him to office, his lawyer and several board members said on Friday.

--nytimes

does that mean rummy is a confirmed liar now?

caught this in today's papers:

Off-lead in the NYT, there's a new report of prisoner abuse in Iraq. This time it's a confession by three former soldiers in the legendary 82^nd Airborne to Human Rights Watch that detainees were routinely beaten in 2003 and 2004. According to the LAT, one sergeant says the troops were acting on orders form military intelligence. He decided to come forward after he heard Donald Rumsfeld say the military had changed its procedures after Abu Ghraib.

Letters Of The Day

Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown has resigned. It would be very wrong to let Brown be the scapegoat for FEMA's sins. The real scandal is that somewhere along the line FEMA became a dumping ground for the president's political cronies with little experience in disaster relief.

The agency's previous director was Joe Albaugh, who was President Bush's 2000 campaign chairman. Albaugh brought in the current failure, whose previous work was with Arabian horses.

The No. 2 guy, Patrick Rhode, worked for the 2000 election campaign. The No. 3 guy is Brooks Altshuler, who used to plan presidential trips. FEMA's long-term recovery director is a guy named Scott Morris, who produced television and radio commercials for the Bush campaign.

None of these guys is qualified to head an emergency-management agency.

How is it possible that four years after 9/11, the president treats a federal agency vital to homeland security as a patronage prize? Call me naive, but it's a real blow to learn that political hacks have been running FEMA, of all agencies of the federal government.

-William C. Stosine, Iowa City.

George Bush said, "I as president am responsible for the problem and for the solution." So why did he fire FEMA Director Michael Brown? Brown claims before and during the storm he called the White House repeatedly and received absolutely no response.

-Steve Stanley, Earlham.

--attribution

if this aint corruption, i dont know what is

The Post and NYT front the indictment of the White House's just-resigned top procurement official, David Safavian, for allegedly giving under-the-table help to uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff and then lying to investigators about it. Safavian as Post puts it, "set purchasing policy for the entire government," he resigned last week, with the indictments were written up. According to a piece in Government Executive magazine last year, he came to the gig with little procurement experience. Before his time in the administration, he worked as a lobbyist with Jack Abramoff. (And final bit of fun: Safavian's wife is the top lawyer on the House committee that oversees government procurement.)

On Vacation - if you will

i'm leaving for nyc this afternoon, and am excited at the prospect of getting a fabulous apt. but i'll continue to make posts from the city - they can't keep this ol' bitch down.

bush's power grab

first 9/11 allowed this criminal to exact more power for himself, and now katrina is offering up (in his mind anyway) the same scenario:

WASHINGTON — President Bush on Monday urged Congress to examine whether the White House needs stronger powers to deal with catastrophes like Hurricane Katrina.

Bush’s backing for the congressional inquiry raised the possibility that lawmakers might expand presidential authority to:

• Order mandatory civilian evacuations

• Dispatch U.S.-based armed forces for emergency search-and-rescue operations

• Grant wider leeway for active-duty U.S. military personnel to carry out law enforcement operations.

--source

he's already got those powers, and yet failed to use them to prevent lives:

from http://www.ohioema.org/robertt.htm:

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 -
(A) the performance of essential community services;
(B) issuance of warnings of risks and hazards;
(C) public health and safety information, including dissemination of such information;
(D) provision of health and safety measures; and
(E) 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.

BUSTED!

busted! was a series of articles i did in another forum where the bushites were caught with their pants down lying about something. here we go again:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 13 - American aviation officials were warned as early as 1998 that Al Qaeda could "seek to hijack a commercial jet and slam it into a U.S. landmark," according to previously secret portions of a report prepared last year by the Sept. 11 commission. The officials also realized months before the Sept. 11 attacks that two of the three airports used in the hijackings had suffered repeated security lapses.

--nytimes

remember bush whining about how nobody ever thought of terrorists using airplanes, and 'certainly never' thought they would use them to crash into buildings? how many months did it take to prove him wrong? obviously, the times thought long enough that nobody would remember.

Letter Of The Day

News flash: That old adage about how crime doesn't pay? Guess what? That's no longer true. In America in 2005, crime does pay.

I learned recently that someone had used my card to buy an Ipod Mini. I called the store where the item was purchased and in five minutes had the name and address of the person who used my card (he had the item shipped to his home).

But too bad for me: The person who committed the fraud lives in Santa Ana, Calif., and I live in Ames. Can you tell where this is going? The Santa Ana police aren't interested because I don't live there, and the Ames police aren't interested because the crime was committed in Santa Ana. Nor does the FBI care.

Silly me! I thought using someone else's credit card was a crime.

So if you want free Ipods, flat-screen TVs, computers or whatever, find someone's credit card and have at it. No one will try to stop you. And when you've shopped till you've dropped, take your shoes off, relax and ponder the joys of life in 21st-century America — the land where crime pays.

-M. M. Ogle, Ames.

--source

Quote of the Day

"Women are trying to prevent unaffordable pregnancies and babies without health insurance and are morally judged. Men are worried about getting it up and are supported with public resources. Very telling of privileged and priorities."
--Patty Bixler, Norwalk (IA)

attribution

it's not a democrat-republicon thing

it's a humane thing. and this one deserves the medal of unbridaled stink.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has hired Kenyon International to set up a mobile morgue for handling bodies in Baton Rouge, Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina, RAW STORY has learned.

Kenyon is a subsidiary of Service Corporation International (SCI), a scandal-ridden Texas-based company operated by a friend of the Bush family. Recently, SCI subsidiaries have been implicated in illegally discarding and desecrating corpses.

Louisiana governor Katherine Blanco subsequently inked a contract with the firm after talks between FEMA and the firm broke down.

In other words, FEMA and then Blanco outsourced the body count from Hurricane Katrina -- which many believe the worst natural disaster in U.S. history -- to a firm whose parent company is known for its "experience" at hiding and dumping bodies.

The Menorah Gardens cemetery chain, owned by SCI, desecrated vaults, removed hundreds of bodies from two cemeteries in Florida and dumped the gruesome remains in woods frequented by wild hogs, investigators discovered in 2001. In one case, a backhoe was used to crack open a vault, remove corpses and make room for more dead bodies.

SCI paid $100 million to settle a lawsuit filed by outraged family members of the deceased.

A secretary at the lawfirm that sued SCI over the Florida cemetery scandals gasped when informed that FEMA had outsourced handling of Katrina victims' bodies to an SCI subsidiary.

"Oh, good lord!" she said.

Peter Hartmann, general manager of the Menorah Gardens Cemetery chain, was later found dead in his car from carbon monoxide poisoning outside his parents' home in an apparent suicide.

--rawstory

rummy's idea of freedom of the press

this just makes me sick. and it's the army that's most dangerous on this issue. of course, like all dictatorships, they claim it's for the common good in what they're doing, but how can anybody know for sure without proof of pictures? that we should just take their word that this is what is happening? dictatorships ask the people to trust them. democracies require the people to trust them.

Outside one house on Kentucky Street, a member of the Army 82nd Airborne Division summoned a reporter and photographer standing nearby and told them that if they took pictures or wrote a story about the body recovery process, he would take away their press credentials and kick them out of the state.

"No photos. No stories," said the man, wearing camouflage fatigues and a red beret.

On Saturday, after being challenged in court by CNN, the Bush administration agreed not to prevent the news media from following the effort to recover the bodies of Hurricane Katrina victims.

But on Monday, in the Bywater district, that assurance wasn't being followed. The 82nd Airborne soldier told reporters the Army had a policy that requires media to be 300 meters -- more than three football fields in length -- away from the scene of body recoveries in New Orleans. If reporters wrote stories or took pictures of body recoveries, they would be reported and face consequences, he said, including a loss of access for up-close coverage of certain military operations.

--sfgate

the definition of total incompetence

from today's papers:

Meanwhile, in some neighborhoods, the U.S. took "every military-age man into custody." An informant then walked around deciding who could go free by pointing his thumb up or down. Such informants have something less than a perfect record. "We almost never get anything good from them," said one GI. "I think they just pick people from another tribe or people who owe them money or something."

Letter Of The WeeQ

Compare and contrast the 2004 hurricane season in which four hurricanes battered Florida with Hurricane Katrina in 2005. In 2004, President Bush and FEMA responded promptly. President Bush was there handing out bottled water to the victims. FEMA was there handing out checks.

The president's direct involvement and FEMA's response in 2004 created the standard for the federal response.

As Hurricane Katrina roared into Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, President Bush stayed on vacation while Michael Brown, FEMA director, postured before the national media cameras telling the nation help was on the way.

But no help came. From Monday through Friday, we watched the tens of thousands of people crowded into the Superdome with no water and no food, breathing in the stench of overflowing toilets. We watched people go into insulin shock. We saw others collapse from the heat. We saw bodies of the dead, one a person slumped in a wheelchair holding a note. We watched the anger of survivors grow and anarchy reign in New Orleans.

So, what is the difference between 2004 and 2005?

In 2004, President Bush was running for re-election. In 2005, President Bush is a lame-duck president.

-Mary Orr, Davenport.

--attribution

Letter Of The Day

Just as George W. Bush has worn 9/11 like a crown, he should forever have to wear hurricane Katrina as a Scarlet Letter.

-Marcia Brunsvold, Boone.

--source

the epitome of crass

BAGHDAD - Scores of Mississippi National Guardsmen in Iraq who lost their homes to Hurricane Katrina have been refused even 15-day leaves to aid their displaced families, told by commanders there are too few U.S. troops in Iraq to spare them, according to guardsmen.

--source

here, let me hit you before you hit me

even if i can't PROVE you're going to. this isn't how America should be.

The Pentagon has drafted a revised doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons that envisions commanders requesting presidential approval to use them to preempt an attack by a nation or a terrorist group using weapons of mass destruction. The draft also includes the option of using nuclear arms to destroy known enemy stockpiles of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.

--source

what went wrong?

slate's today's papers makes it their topic for the day, and in it, this lil' gem:

More absurd: FEMA held hundreds of firefighters in Atlanta for community relations and sexual harassment training before sending them to Louisiana.

wouldn't you know it

from boingboing:

FEMA to Mac, Linux users: drop dead
A stupid usability flaw in the FEMA website is causing frustration for some of the Hurricane Katrina survivors fortunate enough to have computer and internet access. Bottom line: if you're not using Windows + IE, it appears that you won't be able to file a disaster assistance claim on Fema.gov. At MacInTouch, Gary Mullins says:

My 90-year old mother sat out Katrina in her brother's home next door in Diamondhead, MS, about eight miles from the Mississippi coast where the hurricane's eye hit. They survived without injury but with massive destruction to their homes, and my mother has lost most of her possesions.

I brought her to my home in California yesterday and this morning went to the FEMA website to register to start the assistance process.

To my dismay, our Federal emergency agency requires Microsoft Internet Explorer 6, and only IE 6, to use the website for disaster assistance. I don't want to be political about this, but this smacks of a serious leadership failure that the use of the Internet is reserved for only the Windows community. I will reserve my opinion of the administration for the op-ed pages, but I want to vent my dismay about this to the rest of the Mac community. I hope other Mac users let their political reps, newspapers and other media know of this marginalization. [...]

i know if i was a mac user (and i will be soon), i'd be pretty peed off.

it's worse than incest

oh wait, it IS incestuous bidding.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Companies with ties to the Bush White House and the former head of FEMA are clinching some of the administration's first disaster relief and reconstruction contracts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

At least two major corporate clients of lobbyist Joe Allbaugh, President George W. Bush's former campaign manager and a former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, have already been tapped to start recovery work along the battered Gulf Coast.

One is Shaw Group Inc. and the other is Halliburton Co. subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root. Vice President Dick Cheney is a former head of Halliburton.

Bechtel National Inc., a unit of San Francisco-based Bechtel Corp., has also been selected by FEMA to provide short-term housing for people displaced by the hurricane. Bush named Bechtel's CEO to his Export Council and put the former CEO of Bechtel Energy in charge of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.

...
But the web of Bush administration connections is attracting renewed attention from watchdog groups in the post-Katrina reconstruction rush. Congress has already appropriated more than $60 billion in emergency funding as a down payment on recovery efforts projected to cost well over $100 billion.

"The government has got to stop stacking senior positions with people who are repeatedly cashing in on the public trust in order to further private commercial interests," said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight.

--yahoo

*barf*

cnn jus did a segment on the dry part of new orleans

and those residents there can not understand why they're being told to go.

i gotta hand it to cnn. they were well balanced in the report. i have a feeling that cnn is going to come around to the LIGHT side and stand up to rove and his cohorts.

can the self-righteous right get any more clueless?

from TRIBE - LA:

U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's visit to Reliant Park this morning offered him a glimpse of what it's like to be living in shelter.

While on the tour with top administration officials from Washington, including U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao and U.S. Treasury Secretary John W. Snow, DeLay stopped to chat with three young boys resting on cots.

The congressman likened their stay to being at camp and asked, "Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?"

They nodded yes, but looked perplexed.

one has to wonder just how in the HELL do these people even make it getting elected to office. it would have to take a whole lotta payola to make up for some of the sick shit tom delay is known to heave.

i report, you decide

on who's got the most support:

VS

Letter Of The Day

For years, the Republican Party has been making political hay with its attacks on "burdensome" government and efforts to limit its role in people's lives. We see now that they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. The response of this White House to Katrina has played out as a shining tribute to the words of Ronald Reagan that started it all: that "government is not the solution. Government is the problem."

-Jae Retz, Iowa City.

--attribution

Letter Of The Day

In response to President Bush's comparison of his resolve to Franklin D. Roosevelt's ("Bush: Iraq's Oil Must be Kept From Terrorists," Aug. 31), I offer a history lesson courtesy of Thom Hartmann in his recent book, "What Would Jefferson Do?"

"Today, as we face financial and political crises, it's useful to remember that the ravages of the Great Depression hit Germany and the U.S. alike. Through the 1930s, however, Adolf Hitler and Roosevelt chose very different courses to bring their nations back to power and prosperity.

"Germany's response was to use government to empower corporations and reward society's richest individuals, privatize much of the commons, stifle dissent, strip people of constitutional rights, and create an illusion of prosperity through continual and ever-expanding war. America passed minimum-wage laws to raise the middle class, enforced antitrust laws to diminish the power of corporations, increased taxes on corporations and the wealthiest individuals, created Social Security, and through the WPA became the employer of last resort through programs to build national infrastructure, promote the arts, and replant forests."

President Bush should aspire to be as much like Roosevelt as he possibly can.

Brian Brown, Dubuque.

--attribution

i'm jus doin my part

cheney evidently got heckled on cnn this morning, and in an attempt to help the kos out:

Go Fuck yourself, Mr. Cheney!"


"Go fuck yourself, Mr. Bush!"


Go fuck yourself!!


Go fuck yourself!!


GO FUCK YOURSELF!!

for reference

about the 9/11 commission's whitewashing the busheviks' involvement in 9/11

http://www.ericumansky.com/2005/03/the_most_import.html

it was the last paragraph that was the most important

the last paragraph of a WP article about the oil-for-food program, under a banner headline:
Oil-for-Food Panel Rebukes Annan, Cites Corruption
Secretary General Faulted For Management of Program

It also accused U.S. officials of approving "the single largest episode of oil smuggling" out of Iraq, by Jordan, in the weeks before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The United States and Jordan declined Volcker's requests for interviews and documents, the report said, saying his panel had no authority to investigate oil smuggling outside the oil-for-food program.

talk about bias. and it aint liberal.

wonder why we blame media for this mess?

the new york times, once the bastion of integrity, has succumbed to the dark side of pattering to the pansies.

The NYT, meanwhile, has a soft profile of Brown, complete with quotes from his "friend and lawyer." Both the NYT and WP could have told us about the now-questioned qualifications of Brown's underlings, namely his chief of staff (a former event planner for Bush) and his deputy chief of staff (a former flack for ... Bush).

both the NYT and WP in my book have sold its souls to the devil. they are charged with keeping government in check, not being the enablers they have been to the most corrupt administration this country has ever had.

is this how repukes operate?

they create problems, then make those problems the reason they can't do more? from slate's today's papers:

The papers say that Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist put off a vote on extending the estate-tax cut. But the WP mentions far down that Republicans suggested they'll "proceed with a package of $70 billion in tax cuts." The Post also says that for the moment House Republicans are still sticking by their proposal to cut funding for Louisiana flood control. "We are committed to living within our budget," said the Appropriations Committee spokesman.

god i hate republicons. hate 'em hate 'em hate 'em. they are the modern day terrorist.

john roberts just reported

that the naval ship io jima (sp?) is sitting empty because there are no more victims... THEY'VE BEEN ALL EVACUATED.

what utter incompetence. and we're supposed to trust them to keep us safe in the event of a terrorist attack, when THEY HAVE NO WARNING?

GOD HELP US.

Quote Of The Day

For God's sake, are you blind?," a woman shouts at the head of the federal emergency management agency (FEMA), Michael Brown.

"You're patting each other on the back, while people here are dying."

--source

katrinagate should be getting some motion here real soon, huh.

from the "WE'RE NOT MAKING THIS UP" files

courtesy of atrios:

[CC] 00:05:40 Senator rick santorum is criticizing the government's emergency response to hurricane victims hurricane katrina victims. But he's also criticizing the ones who chose to ride out the storm. I mean, you have people who don't heed those warnings and then put people at risk as a result of not heeding those warnings. There may be a need to look at tougher penalties on those who decide to ride it out and understand that there are consequences to not leaving. Coming up, hurricane relief in Mississippi. The lights are finally coming on in some of the hardest-hit areas. Our coverage continues in about ten minutes. 00:06:12

--source

as someone on DU said:

If they were too poor, too sick, or old to get out of the city by their own means, then screw them! Little Ricky wants them to pay fines too!

No wonder some of the hurricane victims do not want to be rescued, fearing they are going to be charged for the helicopter ride. These poor people know very well how America treats the poor, and that there's nothing free here, not even humanitarian relief.

Rick Santorum just proved them right.
Sick.

yes. and, sick is too kind a word for it. nauseating would be more fitting.

Letter Of The Day

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the nation is realizing the reality of what has happened to our country.

As we witness the looting of stores in New Orleans, mostly for food, medicine, water and clothing, the looting not being discussed is the looting that occurred years ago: The looting of the treasury by the Bush administration and the Republican-controlled Congress.

As Bush and the Republicans depleted the surplus left by President Clinton, as well as cut funding to essential services while providing billions of dollars in tax relief to the wealthy, the reality of their policies are being played out before our eyes.

As American taxpayers are spending billions of dollars to rebuild Iraq, Bush can’t find the time or the means to provide water to those suffering in New Orleans.

While Republicans like Congressman Tom Latham of Iowa regurgitate “Stay the course in Iraq for as long as it takes,” Republican House Leader Dennis Hastert of Illinois expresses doubt on spending money to rebuild New Orleans.

Listening to some Republican talking points, one is left with the impression it’s the fault of those suffering for not leaving. Their fault because they have no car or transportation? Money for a bus ride; money for a hotel out of the danger zone? Family to take them in?

The truth is, their fault was believing that our government was going to respond to the impending threat by sending the National Guard and transportation to get them out. Oh, that’s right. There is no Guard — it’s in Iraq.

What is happening to our country, what has happened to our nation is shameful, a tragedy that goes beyond Hurricane Katrina.

To paraphrase Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, “Our national crisis is managed by the ‘president’ we got, not the ‘president’ we want.”

--attribution

from the "DUZNT IT JUS MAKE YOU PUKE" file

In a segment at the top of the show on the surge of evacuees to the Texas city, Barbara Bush said: "Almost everyone I’ve talked to says we're going to move to Houston."

Then she added: "What I’m hearing is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."
--source

i mean, really. that pretty brain of hers shouldn't get contaminated in any way with the truth. she absolutely hasn't got a clue as to what it's like for those folx down there. she sees black people in distress and *pop* goes the disgusted barometer.... not because they're in distress, but that she has to see it.

(new oreleans mayor) nagin's radio interview transcript

and you will have tears in your eyes.

That's -- they're thinking small, man. And this is a major, major, major deal. And I can't emphasize it enough, man. This is crazy.

you really need to read the whole thing.

is that what we got in the federal government?

a bunch of sociopaths?

according to one, and i have to agree, we do.

i repeat: please let this be just a rumor

caught this sifting through some blogs

Please do not let this be true:

It is reported that black hurricane victims in New Orleans have begun eating corpses to survive. Four days after the storm, thousands of blacks in New Orleans are dying like dogs. No-one has come to help them.

The only thing that's keeping me from going out and buying an AK-47 at this point is the phraseology, "It is reported." Nice passive phrasing, no attribution. So we don't know how true it is.

But the fact that it's believable really brings into stark relief how fucked up and fucking awful this Administration and government and response has been. WHY ARE PEOPLE STILL THERE?

---source

in today's blogs, you get a good sense of where 'we' are

http://slate.msn.com/id/2125630/?nav=fix

it's a great tool for research into how people are acting, how they're perceiving things, and what they hope to accomplish.

you thought the hurricane was bad?

how would you like to have the bushite government on your side the next time?

When Wal-Mart sent three trailer trucks loaded with water, FEMA officials turned them away, he said. Agency workers prevented the Coast Guard from delivering 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel, and on Saturday they cut the parish's emergency communications line, leading the sheriff to restore it and post armed guards to protect it from FEMA, Mr. Broussard said.

unbelievable. unFUCKINGbelievable, that our own government, the agency entrusted to deliver hope in times of distress, provides nothing but more misery.

Quote Of The Day

"We wanted soldiers, helicopters, food and water," said Denise Bottcher, press secretary for Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana. "They (FEMA) wanted to negotiate an organizational chart."

--source

whenever bush gets involved, there's bound to be a power struggle

Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state's emergency operations center said Saturday.

The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. "Quite frankly, if they'd been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals," said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.

A senior administration official said that Bush has clear legal authority to federalize National Guard units to quell civil disturbances under the Insurrection Act and will continue to try to unify the chains of command that are split among the president, the Louisiana governor and the New Orleans mayor.

Louisiana did not reach out to a multi-state mutual aid compact for assistance until Wednesday, three state and federal officials said. As of Saturday, Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency, the senior Bush official said.

"The federal government stands ready to work with state and local officials to secure New Orleans and the state of Louisiana," White House spokesman Dan Bartlett said. "The president will not let any form of bureaucracy get in the way of protecting the citizens of Louisiana."

Blanco made two moves Saturday that protected her independence from the federal government: She created a philanthropic fund for the state's victims and hired James Lee Witt, Federal Emergency Management Agency director in the Clinton administration, to advise her on the relief effort.

Bush, who has been criticized, even by supporters, for the delayed response to the disaster, used his weekly radio address to put responsibility for the failure on lower levels of government. The magnitude of the crisis "has created tremendous problems that have strained state and local capabilities," he said. "The result is that many of our citizens simply are not getting the help they need, especially in New Orleans. And that is unacceptable."

--source

its just sad. the bushites always blame others for the troubles we're in. its always someone else who's fucking up, and the responsibility never lies in their hands. God forbid bush get blamed for something. *puke*

kenye west and nbc

seems nbc really screwed up its desire to protect bush by censoring out a comment made by one of the artists performing in the multi-network benefit for victims of katrina.

by censoring kenye out, the story has taken on legs, and run, allll because of the actions nbc took, not because of kenye's comments. had nbc not done anything, this wouldn't have been a story.

so thanks nbc, for exposing your true self. its gratifying to know, you are as pathetic of a news organization in a democracy as it gets.

Quote Of The WeeQ

did we have one of these already today?

well, this tops that one:

"It's such an irony I hate to say it, but we have less capability today than we did on September 11," said a veteran FEMA official involved in the hurricane response. "We are so much less than what we were in 2000," added another senior FEMA official. "We've lost a lot of what we were able to do then."

--source

Quote of the WeeQ

"A lot of people are working hard to help those who've been affected. And I want to thank the people for their efforts. The results are not acceptable."

— President Bush, on Friday, before departing for Louisiana and Mississippi

--attribution

can this president ever speak properly?

Letter Of The Day

The future of Iraq will not be settled by closely guarded meetings of leaders acceptable to U.S. authorities nor by paper ballots and purple fingers. It will be settled in the streets by militias armed with an apparently endless supply of weapons looted from the arms dumps we did not send enough troops to protect.

We call it an insurgency to delude ourselves that there is an effective government to "insurge" against, but it is really the opening stages of a civil war that will end in a breakup of Iraq and ethnic cleansing (which is already under way in the areas controlled by our allies the Kurds). Bloody hands not purple fingers.

Only when we come to terms with this reality will we mourn the last dead American and see the last helicopter lift off from the Green Zone.

-Ian Binnie, Des Moines.

--source

fema = it aint your father's fema

Jefferson Parish Emergency Preparedness Director Walter Maestri said Friday night that the Federal Emergency Management Agency reneged on a promise to begin relieving county emergency preparedness staffers 48 hours after Hurricane Katrina hit the New Orleans metropolitan area.

Maestri’s staff has been working almost around the clock since Katrina approached the Louisiana coastline on Sunday. Today, the staff is
expected to finally switch to a 12 hours on/12 hours off schedule, he said,
adding that they’re both tired and demoralized by the lack of assistance from federal officials.

“We had been told we would be on our own for 48 hours,” Maestri said.
“Prepare to survive and in 48 hours the cavalry would arrive.

“Well, where are they?” he said. Maestri said the agreement was signed by officials with the Southeastern Louisiana Emergency Preparedness Officials Association, the state and the Federal Emergency Management Agency as part of this year’s Hurricane Pam tabletop exercise. That exercise began the process of writing a series of manuals explaining how to respond to a catastrophic disaster. Financed by FEMA, it included a variety of federal, state and local officials.

A FEMA spokesman late Friday said they couldn’t confirm or deny that
the agency signed the agreement Maestri referred to.

=--source

i HIGHLY recommend the above source for news about new orleans.

is that a joke?

The Navy has hired Houston-based Halliburton Co. to restore electric power, repair roofs and remove debris at three naval facilities in Mississippi damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

--source

wanna bet the wheels weren't greased before they even thought about callin up the national guard?

Quote of the WeeQ

"Here is a superpower that can crush at will a tinpot dictatorship but then becomes so bogged down in the grisly aftermath of war that it finds itself unable to respond to anything like adequately to the plight of tens of thousands of its own citizens engulfed by a natural calamity," said Britain's Daily Mail newspaper.

"President Bush, his ratings already in free-fall, could pay a high price indeed for his military folly," it said.

--attribution

Quote of the Day

"People are getting the help they need," Brown asserted on NBC's "Today" show. "This is an ongoing disaster. This disaster didn't just end when Katrina left."

--attribution

under the headline:

FEMA Head: Lawlessness Not Anticipated

excuse me mr fema head, just exactly what did you think would happen when people have no food and no water in sweltering heat? throw flowers?