What is Randi Rhodes talking about with the 500 buses

[orleans]

i just tuned in and caught her saying fema promised blanco 500 buses the day of the storm.

does anyone know what article she is referring to?

[ewagner]

1. Here's an article that explains it

http://2theadvocate.com/stories/091805/new_blanco001.shtml

[orleans]

4. thank you! n/t

[phusion]

2. I dunno

but she just said she's the only one from AAR that will be in DC.

Not true -- Malloy will be there too...

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

11. I know there also will be DC college professors...

... at the prostest, at least one for sure ;) that i know of. Along with a group of road trippers from points west that have attended the inaugaural prostest together.

Circumstances keep me from attending, sure would love to hang out in Georgetown for a few days once again.

[phusion]

12. Sweet...

I think it's going to be a large protest.

I like your username. Are you a Descartes fan? :)

:hi:

[damntexdem]

15. My wife will be there.

While I'm stuck at home. Well, there's a local vigil.

[gatorboy]

3. Here you go:

http://2theadvocate.com/stories/091805/new_blanco001.shtml

Nearly three weeks after Hurricane Katrina raged ashore, Gov. Kathleen Blanco still wants one question answered.

Where were the buses?

Hours after the hurricane hit Aug. 29, the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced a plan to send 500 commercial buses into New Orleans to rescue thousands of people left stranded on highways, overpasses and in shelters, hospitals and homes.

On the day of the storm, or perhaps the day after, FEMA turned down the state's suggestion to use school buses because they are not air conditioned, Blanco said Friday in an interview.

[RepublicanElephant]

5. wow!

won't hear this on cnn!
:wow:

[orleans]

6. thank you. n/t

[CottonBear]

7. FEMA told Blanco they had buses in northern LA: six hours from NO.

Blanco was very upset.

http://www.thinkprogress.org/katrina-timeline
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/katrina-timeline.php

[RSchewe]

8. MediaMatters: ABC's Stephanopoulos repeated school bus falsehood spread by

Pruden, Hannity, and Gingrich.

On September 11, ABC host George Stephanopoulos repeated a falsehood that had reverberated through the right-wing media the preceding week -- that "there were 2,000 buses under water" that New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin could have used to evacuate his city before Hurricane Katrina's arrival. The claim appears to have originated in a September 6 column by Washington Times editor-in-chief Wesley Pruden, who inaccurately charged that, although Nagin ordered a mandatory evacuation before the hurricane's arrival, he "kept the city's 2,000 school buses parked and locked in neat rows when there was still time to take the refugees to higher ground." Conservative websites, including the Power Line and Little Green Footballs weblogs, quickly linked to Pruden's column.

But Pruden dramatically overstated the number of New Orleans school buses. As of 2003, the most recent year for which data appears to be available, the Orleans Parish school district, which operates New Orleans' public schools, owned only 324 school buses. In addition, a Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development profile of the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority (RTA), last updated May 5, notes that RTA owned 364 public buses, bringing the total of the city's public transit and school buses to fewer than 700 (assuming the fleet of school buses has not been dramatically increased since 2003), far fewer than the 2,000 Pruden claimed. Even so, Pruden's claim was repeated that evening on Fox News' Hannity & Colmes by co-host Sean Hannity, who insisted, "Two thousand buses sat; 2,000 school buses." The falsehood was echoed the next day by Fox news political analyst and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-GA), who baselessly suggested that the city owned more than enough buses to help every poor person leave the city. And In a September 11 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette column, national security writer Jack Kelly asked, "hy weren't the roughly 2,000 municipal and school buses in New Orleans utilized to take people out of the city before Katrina struck?"

more...


http://mediamatters.org/items/200509120005">http://mediamatters.org/items/200509120005

[gatorboy]

10. What's worse, FEMA turnbed down the school bus option

because of the lack of air conditioning....

[TrogL]

13. Don't they have windows?

Our city buses don't have air conditioning - you just open the window.

[Bridget Burke]

14. Yes, and Alberta's climate is just like Louisiana's....

And why didn't those hungry people just eat cake?

[DoYouEverWonder]

9. BushCo deliberately withheld resources during Katrina

that should be enough to bring criminal charges against a few people, you would think?

[orleans]

16. i believe randi called bushie's actions "negligent homicide"

and i wish someone would charge him soon!