The Right-Wing Smear Campaign Against Kevin Jennings

[Sandy Eggo]

They are set up to be a second responder not the first.  The states are supposed to get things in order first then call for help from FEMA.  When they, Louisiana, was asked if they needed help the governor said no they were fine. 

FEMA steps in when local and state agencies are overwhelmed and the governor declares a "state of emergency".

I'd like to see your source in reference to "no we're fine", because according to the timeline. That didn't happen.

http://thinkprogress.org/katrina-timeline/

After being roundly criticized in a slew of media, congressional and government reports, the Federal Emergency Management Agency's internal watchdog Friday returned its own verdict on the handling of Hurricane Katrina: The criticism against FEMA is largely deserved.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/04/14/fema.ig/index.html

[LOsborne]

When they, Louisiana, was asked if they needed help the governor said no they were fine. 

I'm going to have to see your source for this statement, me. I remember LA asking for Guardsmen from non-threatened states days before the storm hit. The Louisiana National Guard, who should have been filling sand bags to shore up the levies, were in Iraq.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/iraq-war-delayed-katrina-relief-effort-inquiry-finds-509339.html

Louisiana asked for and received the offer of help from the National Guard of other states, but Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld would not let those troops respond.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3882303

Had the National Guard, in full strength, been sandbagging those levies for the three days it was apparent Katrina would hit the coast, most of the levies would have stood -- long enough to be repaired after the storm and while the neighborhoods they protected were still inhabitable, anyway. And ya know, somehow, sandbagging levies is one of the things I always think of first when thinking of the duties of the National Guard. I've seen them doing that often enough on both the Wabash and the Ohio during my lifetime.

In additional the government (FEMA) and Red Cross refused to allow trucks with water, food and ice into the area. Three of the trucks we sent from Evansville were turned back.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_6929.cfm

Despite your desire to see this cluster-f*ck as one of those things that "just happened," the federal government was not part of the solution here. And ya know what ya are, if you ain't part of the solution, doncha?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/iraq-war-delayed-katrina-relief-effort-inquiry-finds-509339.html

[me]

The money given to repair the dam was still spent elsewhere and why wasn't the governor and the Mayor anywhere to be found after this happened?  They should have been helping.  This was not the fault of just one person the blame lies in a lot of places and was and still is being aimed at one source which is wrong any way you slice it.  Mississippi which took the brunt of the hit did just fine it would seem.  Everyone seems to forget that was no easy undertaking and Bush was being fought on every level.  The large question still remains why weren't those people evacuated like they should have been.  That lies squarely with the mayor and governor not Bush. 

[LOsborne]

The money given to repair the dam was still spent elsewhere ...

You've said that twice now, and haven't provided a source, so I will. Here's where the money was spent:

By 2003 the federal funding for the flood control project essentially dried up as it was drained into the Iraq war. In 2004, the Bush administration cut funding requested by the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for holding back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain by more than 80 percent. Additional cuts at the beginning of this year...forced the New Orleans district of the Corps to impose a hiring freeze.

http://www.factcheck.org/article344.html

Now will you admit that the Army Corps of Engineers was responsible for the maintenance of those levees, and that Bush sent the money to do it to Iraq? C'mon, me, don't blow smoke if you can't back it up, and don't just make it up thinking no one is going to check.

[LOsborne]

The large question still remains why weren't those people evacuated like they should have been.  That lies squarely with the mayor and governor not Bush. 

No it doesn't. Read this.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/03/AR2005120301480.html

Pay special attention to these paragraphs;

Thousands of documents released by Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco Friday night shed new light on clashes between state officials, New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin and the Bush administration as they struggled to respond to Hurricane Katrina.

Among the more than 100,000 pages of newly released records, which ranged from after-action reports to hand-scrawled notes written at the height of the storm, are memos showing Blanco frustrated and angered over delays in evacuations and the slow delivery of promised federal aid.

"We need everything you've got," Blanco is quoted in a memo as telling President Bush on Aug. 29, the day Katrina made landfall. But despite assurances from the Federal Emergency Management Agency that 500 buses were "standing by," Blanco's aides were compelled to take action when the FEMA buses failed to materialize, documents show. "We need buses," Andy Kopplin, chief of staff to Blanco, said in an e-mail to Blanco staffers late on Aug. 30, the day after the storm hit. "Find buses that can go to NO [New Orleans] ASAP."

By all published reports, both Blanco and Nagin were both too busy during this time to go to the bathroom. Where do you get the idea they weren't involved? Did Rush tell you that?

[me]

Thats bull shit.  There was a lot full of school buses that were just sitting there.  Where do you think that teenager got the bus he took a load of people to Texas in? Blanco didn't do shit but disappear.

[LOsborne]

One more time .... Let's See Your Source!

[me]

One more time .... Let's See Your Source!

I've got about 8 different things going on right now so I'll do what I can.  Sorry 'bout the little Ex/Bo D thing there I think I need to chill out a bit.  Didn't mean to go ballistic there guess they're rubbing off on me...

[me]

Here's one link. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14559053/ns/nightly_news_with_brian_williams-after_katrina/  Notice it isn't Fox

[me]

http://www.parttimepundit.com/archives/1027

[LOsborne]

I've got about 8 different things going on right now so I'll do what I can.  Sorry 'bout the little Ex/Bo D thing there I think I need to chill out a bit.  Didn't mean to go ballistic there guess they're rubbing off on me...

Nah, you're fine. You're allowed to get passionate about your views. You attacked the issue, and not the poster, and I appreciate it.

Thanks for the links. I'll try to read them after work.

[Exterminator]

C'mon, me, don't blow smoke if you can't back it up, and don't just make it up...

What else can she do?  It is obvious from her posts on the subject that she is absolutely and profoundly ignorant about the sequence of events involved in that debacle.

[Bo D]

I've got about 8 different things going on right now so I'll do what I can.  Sorry 'bout the little Ex/Bo D thing there I think I need to chill out a bit.  Didn't mean to go ballistic there guess they're rubbing off on me...

Now don't go all Palin on us. Trying to blame someone else for your shortcomings is not cool.

[me]

Now don't go all Palin on us. Trying to blame someone else for your shortcomings is not cool.

Huh?  I wasn't blaming anyone else I just had a lot going on where am I blaming anyone else in that statement?

[Philodox]

How do you manage taking a thread about a whiney, queer teacher to a re-rant of Katrina ?

answer:... w/ the attention span of a grape !

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Now, this is my 1st post here, notice how by-partison I am ?  That will soon change.

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