In article <1125856575.586d115c6fcea4334b1ae19e350bb79b@teranews>,
fstone69@earthling.com says...

quibbler <quibbler247@yahoo.com> wrote in
news:MPG.1d84d0c1ebe468da9898fb@news.readfreenews.net:

In article <1125846553.7c31e4367f13a98277890149c460022a@teranews>,
fstone69@earthling.com says...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2005/09/03/AR2005090301680.html

...Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal
officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen
Babineaux Blanco

She was certainly right in refusing their incompetent powergrab.
If not for her then nothing would have been done in New Orleans.

Stop lying about people like Blanco who has been completely
incompetant

Oh horseshit. They evacuated 3/4ths of the fucking city before the
story hit. FEMA and homeland security were the incompetents who
couldn't deal with the remaining 1/4th. These agencies has primary
responsibility to respond, since these disasters were declared before
the hurricane even hit land.

To wit:

http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/theme_home2.jsp

"In the event of a terrorist attack, natural disaster or other
large-scale emergency, the Department of Homeland Security will assume
primary responsibility on March 1st for ensuring that emergency
response professionals are prepared for any situation."

and more concerned about covering her ***** than about coordinating
with FEMA to get the job done. Don't think that your snippage will
make the facts go away, quibbler.

There were no facts there. Let me make it real simple for you, moron.
Blanco and Nagin called for help from anyone who was listening. If
you expected them to fill out paper work and dot every 'i' and cross
every 't' in the middle of a disaster then you're either just a total
fucking idiot, or you're trying to make excuses. How can you possibly
be such a blithering idiot that you honestly believe Blanco didn't ask
for help from every single person who was listening. Did she really
have to tell other people that there was a hurricane about to hit her
state? What cave would you have to be living in to not know that LA
needed help? If there were any disaster resource managers sitting by
the phone, pining away for Blanco to call her rather than being
proactive then they should be taken outside and shot. Of course she
asked for help. The Feds tried to play power games with her and she
called their bluff. The Bush administration fucked this one up big
time and no amount of mealy-mouthed spin and monday-morning
quarterbacking by you of Blanco and Nagin will erase the fact that the
feds acted far too slowly.

Homeland Security and FEMA completely dropped the ball and no
governor is required to give up the ability to govern the state in
exchange for Federal disaster assistance. Bush has already
admitted that the federal response was "unacceptable" and too slow.

You're misquoting him on that.

I haven't misquoted him. He said there were, "a lot of people working
hard to help those who have been affected, and I want to thank the
people for their efforts. The results are not acceptable." He's also
been quoted as using the word "unacceptable" if you are seriously
trying to play that sort of a word game.

So stop lying about
people like Blanco who was actually on the job helping New Orleans,

It's no lie, quibbler. She was responsible for calling on other
states' Guard troops and for coordinating with FEMA and she *FAILED*

Absolute *****. You are so fucking STUPID. You honestly think
that she didn't CALL people and ask for help. She certainly worked
with FEMA and she certainly was in touch with other states. You CAN'T
think that any governor would not ask for help in the worst disaster
in modern history. So before you go trotting around your big lie, ask
yourself if it could possibly make sense. Nobody believes your
propaganda and excuses that FEMA and other agencies were waiting by
the phone for Blanco to call them. Only a moron could believe that
she didn't contact them or that they didn't know that they should get
their asses down there.

. Mayor
Nagin was responsible for executing his city's disaster plan and he
*FAILED*.

NO, you dumbass fucking psycho, he was dealing with an unprecidented
emergency and he had only around 1500 police to attempt to implement a
complete evacuation. They evacuated 3/4ths of the city.
When you say that he failed, you are not only moronically
monday-morning quarterbacking, but you are showing that you have no
fucking clue about how the real world works. You just can't handle
the fact that Georgie fucked this thing up and caused the death of ten
thousand people through his blatant disregard and incompetence. He
was on vacation and dropped the ball. Blanco was not on vacation and
obviously asked for help instantly. BTW, please tell me that you
don't honestly think that Blanco needed to call up FEMA or Homeland
Security on the phone and say, "Hey ummm....you guys, I don't know if
you noticed, but there's this hurricane thing going on and by golly it
might just be a good idea if you think about being here or
something..." This whole idiotic "we needed her permission" excuse is
positively absurd. Bush doesn't ask the worlds permission to invade
Iraq and he certainly didn't need to wait on anyone's permission to
bring disaster relief to New Orleans. He certainly did have
permission, in any event to bring aid. He might not have had 100%
dictatorial control over every state employee, but it is not clear
that he should have been given such authority. Criticizing Nagin
about procedure is about like criticizing Guiliani for violating the
Clean Air Act for allowing debris from the WTC to stay in the air.
Just quit with your asinine character assassinations and try to be
honest for a change.

while Bush was still on vacation and wanting to attend John
McCain's birthday party, rather than visiting the disaster area.
Bush bungled the disaster relief and it cost of the lives of around
ten thousand americans so far. That's yet another reason that he
must be removed from office.

http://americansforfreedom.blogspot.com/2005/09/ive-had-it-with-

- blaming-this.html

1. Bush called for the mandatory evacuation of everyone in New
Orleans before the Governor or Mayor.

1. Again, you've shown yourself to be a moron. First off, you forgot
that most people had begun to evacuate New Orleans before the storm
even hit. Secondly, if you honestly think that neither the Mayor or
the Governor knew what was happening in the city better than Bush did
then you just have no capacity for reason.

Give me a break. Bush Told Diane Sawyer on September 1st

"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/005333.php

Now even you can't be dumb enough to think that nobody anticipated
this. What's clear is that Bush didn't anticipate this, which makes
it hard to believe that he was the first to realize that New Orleans
had to be evacuated.

In fact it's not clear that a complete evacuation was appropriate and
indeed Nagin and Blanco rightly exempted certain areas because of
practical issues and because it was assumed that FEMA could deliver
aid there. Bush's incompetent FEMA, under political hack Mikey Brown,
and homeland security personnel gave constant miscues about feeding
people that they didn't,
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?

nt ent_id=1001054586
and abortive plans to shore up levees which made it sound like New
Orleans still might have been saved.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-
0509030220sep03,1,5525666.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

http://www.nola.com/newsflash/louisiana/index.ssf?base/news-
18/1125239940201382.xml&storylist=louisiana

"NEW ORLEANS (AP) =3F In the face of a catastrophic Hurricane
Katrina, a mandatory evacuation was ordered Sunday for New Orleans by
Mayor Ray Nagin.

Yes, that's mighty good proof that Bush ordered it first...NOT. I'm
sure that's why they lead with saying that Nagin, rather than Bush
actually issued the order.

Acknowledging that large numbers of people, many of them stranded
tourists, would be unable to leave, the city set up 10 places of last
resort for people to go, including the Superdome.
The mayor called the order unprecedented and said anyone who could
leave the city should. He exempted hotels from the evacuation order
because airlines had already cancelled all flights.
Gov. Kathleen Blanco, standing beside the mayor at a news conference,
said President Bush called and personally appealed for a mandatory
evacuation for the low-lying city, which is prone to flooding.

This quoted text doesn't support your case. It shows that Nagin and
Blanco ordered the evacuation and that Blanco had a conversation with
Bush in which he agreed with her. That does not indicate that Bush
called for the evacuation first. Furthermore, despite your manifest
stupidity, it is one thing for bush to babble some words and another
thing for Nagin to have to get police and fire fighters driving to go
around the city with bullhorns and loud speakers spreading the word.
Nagin acted. Bush only allegedly spoke through the mouthpiece of
Blanco, as far as this incident is concerned, and yet this makes her
incompetent and Bush competent in your eyes.

2. All pre-evacuation plans for New Orleans called for bussing and
assistance to those who do not have private transportation.

No, it called for evacuation in private vehicles and said that busing
"may" be provided.

of opening shelters of last refuge. Anyway, didn't you see the huge
lines of traffic evacuating the city before the storm? They did get a
lot of people out, but they did not guarantee that all people would be
evacuated ahead of time. They had designated shelters for those who
still couldn't make it out. Do you deny that New Orleans ever planned
to use shelters for those that they could not evacuate in time?

If
the Superdome had not been opened then many more people likely would
have died. But FEMA dropped the ball in helping provide busses and
fuel to help people evacuate from the superdome.

Again, talk is cheap
when Bush tells blanco that he wants evacuation, but doesn't provide
the means to accomplish it. I guess he really loves unfunded
mandates. See for example
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/?/mtlogs/nola_tporleans/archive

/2 005_09.html#076771

BTW, speaking of plans, how about the plans to shore up the levees
which Bush and the repug congress so consistently underfunded.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/8/31/163230/120
http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/alpert083105.html

http://www.swingstateproject.com/2005/08/katrina_proves.php

http://www.ohsep.louisiana.gov/plans/EOPSupplement1a.pdf

"The primary means

You apparently don't know what these words mean. It doesn't mean that
no shelters would be used. It just means that shelters would not be
the primary way of protecting the citizens from the storm.

of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles.

Question: Is a bus a personal vehicle. If not then your claim that
all people had to be bused out has hust collapsed.

School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles and vehicles
provided by volunteer agencies may be used

Do you understand what the words "may be used" mean? Does the word
"may" now mean "absolutely required"?

So far, this constitutes no
evidence that the mayor didn't follow the plan. They had to fall back
upon shelters like the superdome, given the fact that they had
inadequate bussing to get even a small fraction of the 80,000 people
in the superdome out. The plan did not obligate them to bus all
people out of town.

to provide transportation for
individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in
evacuating." "Previous hurricanes evacuations in New Orleans were
always voluntary, because so many people don't have the means of
getting out. Some are too poor and there is always a French Quarter
full of tourists who get caught."

Yep and yet homeland security has received tens of billions so that it
can do things like this.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2005/09/03/AR2005090301
653.html?nav=rss_nation

http://junkyardblog.net/archives/week_2005_08_28.html#004752 found
this gem

3. Keeping in mind this hurricane plan that was not followed, take a
look at the picture of the 255 buses

They keep dropping the number. They now say maybe it was only 160,
but it doesn't matter. It was still too small a number to evacuate
all the people in the superdome and that's assuming that there were
adequate places for them to go instead, which was not the case.

, which I picture yesterday at

Junkyard blog. As
http://junkyardblog.net/archives/week_2005_08_28.html# 004752 says,
"we count 255 buses in that one lot. That means at a capacity of 66
on board, 16,830 New Orleans residents could have been evacced out in
one trip. Even if you have a lower capacity per bus, say 50 per bus,
you're still getting nearly 13,000 out in one run. In an emergency
mandatory evacuation, you could probably get away with putting more
than 66 on each of those buses."

Except that it's not clear that there was anywhere for them to go, or
drivers or gasoline, or clear roads.

UPDATE: And GOOD LORD, he just found another couple hundred city
buses (the other ones were yellow school buses) which would have
saved another 18,000 or so on 1 trip alone.

4. No one has proof of what exactly caused the breaches of 3 canals,
but 1 eye witness quoted on Fox News today speaking with said that he
saw floating grain barges hit the 17th st. canal

Yeah and some people said that FEMA was there right before it broke,
suggesting that they could have cocked something up. But the real
reason it broke is here.

http://www.alternet.org/story/24871/

and cause that breach, not
just flood waters. This is pure conjecture, but regardless, the
breaches of the 17th st levee occurred at the newly reconstructed and
restored part of the levee, not the old decrepit part.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-
050901corps,1,7189346.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true this
gem via http://www.michellemalkin.com/

"WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Thursday that a
lack of funding for hurricane-protection projects around New Orleans
did not contribute to the disastrous flooding that followed Hurricane
Katrina.

Oh please. That's not what http://www.alternet.org/story/24871/ said,
despite lying spin from MichelleMalkin.com

In a telephone interview with reporters, corps officials said
that although portions of the flood-protection levees remain
incomplete, the levees near Lake Pontchartrain that gave
way--inundating much of the city--were completed and in good
condition before the hurricane.

False:
"One project that a contractor had been racing to finish this summer
was a bridge and levee job right at the 17th Street Canal, site of the
main breach on Monday."

However, they noted that the levees were designed for a Category 3
hurricane and couldn't handle the ferocious winds and raging waters
from Hurricane Katrina,

Except that FEMA said they could temporarily shore them up with
emergency ballasts. Were they lying?

Plus there were many pumping
stations which might have taken care of the floodwaters and these
failed to work and then there's the fact that funding was severely cut
and the job wasn't completed, so we won't actually know if better
infrastructure would have saved the day.

In light of just the above evidence, no reasonable person can blame a
poor response,

In light of the above evidence alone is shows that flood control was
seriously underfunded on the federal level and the disaster response
was unbelievably inadequate.

nor re fault of the people left for days on the
President.

It was his watch and for that reason alone it is his fucking JOB to
take responsibility. However, he not only refuses to take
responsibility, but he has made it clear through his actions and works
that he was shockingly incompetent and unconcerned about proper or
timely disaster relief.