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September 05, 2005
Why Leftard jihadists are having coniptions over Katrina
The whole of their argument that Katrina is All Bush's Fault! finds them arguing they are disappointed that Bush didn't act like the Constitution-ignoring-power-hungry-DICTATOR who would unceremoniously shove Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin aside, usurp their own state-mandated evacuation plans, seize power illegally and militarize the Gulf prior to Katrina's fall.
They want him to have acted like they've always accused him of acting.
No wonder they don't want to be confused with actual facts.
Fuckwits.
Posted by Darleen at September 5, 2005 05:27 PM
Comments
I don't know how you feel about having a FEMA director who spent the decade leading up to 2001 running horse shows, who only got a FEMA deputy directorship because his college roommate was the director, who had no disaster management experience in his life prior to showing up at FEMA, who spent the beginning of the disaster pretending everything was fine, and who is now tying up volunteer efforts in bureaucratic red tape. Personally, I am quite unhappy with Michael Brown, and I really don't see why anyone should feel otherwise.
Posted by: Neil the Ethical Werewolf at September 5, 2005 11:27 PM
(Just to make it clear, the point of my comment is to point out what I take to be the more common current criticism of Bush among people on the left.)
Posted by: Neil the Ethical Werewolf at September 5, 2005 11:37 PM
Neil
Indeed, Brown may have fumbled the ball on effective communication at minimum because of some of the jawdropping and boneheaded comments.
But surely you jest about the "criticism" on The Left being focused on that alone??
And bureaucratic snafus are nothing new...notice the criticism being leveled at the Red Cross and their handling of people who took shelter in hotels when some hotel owners/managers just flung open the doors and said "get in here"...those people are much happier with the reception and help they are getting from FEMA because the Red Cross told them to LEAVE the hotels and come the shelters (even lying to them that the hotels wanted them out).
FEMA is a RESPONSE organization and even their own guidelines say "you are on your own for 72 -96 hours".
Blanco and Nagin blew it...through incompetence or corruption or just plain refusal to share their turf with the feds. Blanco requested and got a promise of MONEY and post-hurrican DEBRIS removal but NEVER requested or gave permission to let the feds coordinate the National Guard or bring in the military.
The word "federalism" has conveniently dropped from the Left's vocabulary.
Posted by: Darleen at September 6, 2005 07:02 AM
Darleen,
I'd really like you to show me the link to that FEMA guideline you claim says, "you are on your own."
In the meantime, allow me to introduce you to one of the strategic goals of the DHS mission statement:
"Lead, manage and coordinate the national response to acts of terrorism, natural disasters, or other emergencies."
FEMA is part of DHS, by the way....
Posted by: Brad at September 6, 2005 09:15 AM
Have you heard this gem from the lovely Barbara Bush during a visit to the stadium housing evacuees in Houston? "Almost everyone I've talked to says we're going to move to Houston. What I'm hearing which is sort of scary 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 (chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."
Posted by: patriotgal at September 6, 2005 01:00 PM
The stench I'm talking about isn't the human death and misery in New Orleans, it's the stench coming out the Government, Republican from one end of Pennsylvania Avenue to the next.
To a single one, I have heard Republican Congressperson after Republican Congressperson toeing the Party line that "now is not the time to point fingers." This morning it was Mark Foley from Florida on CSPAN.
How dare they?
How dare they tell the public not to hold their Government accountable? How dare they think photo ops are enough to quell public outrage at the utterly preventable human catastrophe?
THE REASON THAT WE POINT FINGERS IS BECAUSE YOU REPUBLICANS ARE TOO STUPID TO FIRE THE IDIOTS YOURSELVES. If the President EVER held ANYONE accountable the public and the media wouldn't have to point fingers. Instead, the Republican Party looks more and more like Soviet Communists, valuing Party and self-enrichment over the people they profess to lead. From 9/11, to WMD, to Katrina, NOT A SINGLE PERSON HAS BEEN HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR DECISIONS MADE THAT CAUSED THE DEATHS OF TENS OF THOUSANDS.
For the four years since 9/11 we've watched as Republicans, with total control of Government, choose themselves over the public. We've seen them put people wholly unqualified in positions of great responsibility. And they have failed. And people are dead as a result.
I'm sorry if the Party doesn't get it when the citizens of a nation are outraged at their Government. I'm sorry if the Party doesn't get it when the public demands that their leaders DO THEIR JOBS in either a time of war or in a natural disaster.
Jefferson County Parish President Broussard has it right:
I'm not surprised at what the feds say, they're covering their butts. They're keeping the body counts down because they don't want to horrify the nation. It's worse than Iraq, worse than 9-11. They just don't want to know how many were murdered by bureaucracy.
The Republican Party hasn't, at least in my lifetime, believed in Government. They have railed against it for decades, calling it evil.
I used to believe that they thought it was a necessary evil. Now we've seen that they don't believe in it at all - other than as a trough at which they and their cronies gorge themselves. From Cheney's Halliburton down to patronage positions like Michael Brown. Since when is the Federal Emergency MANAGEMENT Administrator a patronage position? Since the Republican Party has controlled all of Government.
Sometimes you need to be outside of insanity to observe it and understand it. The UK's Independent is right: "There is a sense that the struggle for the soul of America is gathering pace."
Here at home, Keith Olbermann is right: "For many of this country's citizens, the mantra has been - as we were taught in Social Studies it should always be - whether or not I voted for this President - he is still my President. I suspect anybody who had to give him that benefit of the doubt stopped doing so last week."
This is not MY Government. This is not the people's Government. As we have seen now three times, 9/11, Iraq and New Orleans, this isn't a "Government" at all. What used to be a Government is now rotten to the core and the stench is horrific.
Throw them all out, now. As they have shown over the last three years, the potential for human death and misery over the next three years is terrifying. I would never have ever imagined that I could ever write that about my own Government and it would actually be true.
Darleen says: all you're saying is blah blah blah...I'm not seeing anything specific. Just it's all the FEDS fault. What about the Nagin Memorial Pool of Buses? How come Nagin and Blanco didn't follow their own plans? Get specific, fuckwit, or get lost. If this isn't your country GET THE FUCK OUT.
Posted by: Ex-Republican at September 6, 2005 01:06 PM
Brad, if you haven't been following the volumes of actually examination of relevant documents and procedures of FEMA, the local disaster procedures, etc, over at Jeff Goldstein's, go.read.now.
It's been a great clearing spot for people pointing out relevant parts of controlling documents...like this
According to page 62 of the NRP “The NRP Catastrophic Incident Supplement (described in the Catastrophic Incident Annex) addresses resource and procedural implications of catastrophic events...” The Catastrophic Incident Annex (which can be found in the full text version of the NRP(pdf) says:
Recognizing that Federal and/or national
resources are required to augment overwhelmed
State, local, and tribal response efforts, the NRPCIA
establishes protocols to preidentify and
rapidly deploy key essential resources (e.g.,
medical teams, urban search and rescue teams,
transportable shelters, medical and equipment
caches, etc.) that are expected to be urgently
needed/required to save lives and contain
incidents.
Accordingly, upon designation by the Secretary
of Homeland Security of a catastrophic incident,
Federal resources—organized into incidentspecific
“packages”—deploy in accordance with
the NRP-CIS and in coordination with the
affected State and incident command structure.(pg. 339)
I have lived my whole life in earthquake country and it's almost tatooed in my brain that we MUST be prepared as INDIVIDUALS to TAKE CARE OF OURSELVES for 3 to 5 days because THAT IS THE TIME FRAME for coordination of any relief response.
Federal resources arriving at a Federal
mobilization center or staging area remain there
until requested by State/local incident command
authorities, when they are integrated into the
incident response effort. (pg. 340)
Why were the so-called designated shelters such as the Superdome NOT STOCKED?
I've heard of the fabled government corruption in LA... I believe it now.
Posted by: Darleen at September 6, 2005 01:11 PM
I still don't see how this NRP Catastrophic Incident Supplement proves your contention that FEMA's own guidelines say "you are on your own for 72 -96 hours". Were you just paraphrasing with quotes?
Care to respond to the DHS mission statement "strategic goals" I quoted?
"Lead, manage and coordinate the national response to acts of terrorism, natural disasters, or other emergencies."
Let me guess your answer: "It depends on what the meaning of 'lead' is..."
(I know, that was really sarcastic of me, but I really must live up to my label as a Leftard jihadist)
Posted by: Brad at September 6, 2005 01:57 PM
Not to burst the Idiot Butch's bubble, but you'd think she knew something other than RNC talking points: From tomorrow's NYTimes. (Cue the Butch telling us how the NYTimes is leftard jihadism, and we should all be getting our journalism from NewsMax instead...or maybe they can recall Jeff Gannon from whatever escort job he's currently holding.)
But an initial examination of Katrina's aftermath demonstrates the extent to which the federal government failed to fulfill the pledge it made after the Sept. 11 attacks to face domestic threats as a unified, seamless force. ...Federal Emergency Management Agency officials expected the state and city to direct their own efforts and ask for help as needed. Leaders in Louisiana and New Orleans, though, were so overwhelmed by the scale of the storm that they were not only unable to manage the crisis, but they were not always exactly sure what they needed. While local officials assumed that Washington would provide rapid and considerable aid, federal officials, weighing legalities and logistics, proceeded at a deliberate pace.
...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 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 operation director.
...William D. Vines, a former mayor of Fort Smith, Ark., helped deliver food and water to areas hit by the hurricane. But he said FEMA halted two trailer trucks carrying thousands of bottles of water to Camp Beauregard, near Alexandria, La., a staging area for the distribution of supplies.
"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."
...An irony of the much-criticized federal hurricane response is that it is being overseen by a new cabinet department created in response to perceived shortcomings in the response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. And it is governed by a new plan the Department of Homeland Security unveiled in January with considerable fanfare.
The National Response Plan set out a lofty goal in its preface: "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."
Posted by: Leftard Jihadist at September 10, 2005 06:10 PM
If she prefers straight AP stories, I'll give her this one instead:
he (GAO) report (after Bush I's mishandling of Hurricane Andrew) also called for a strong presidential lead in times of disaster, saying "presidential leadership creates a powerful, meaningful perception that the federal government recognizes an event is catastrophic, is in control and is going to use every means necessary to meet the immediate mass care needs of disaster victims." The current Bush White House has been criticized for appearing slow to grasp the magnitude of Katrina's impact. A Pew Research Center poll found 67 percent of Americans believed Bush could have done more to speed up relief efforts, and just 28 percent believed he did
Damn those leftard jihadists. They're everywhere now.
Posted by: Leftard Jihadist at September 10, 2005 06:12 PM