Bush IS GOING DOWN FOR THIS

[back2basics909]

Just been watching MSNBC and TWO different officials, were PLEADING for Federal help. PLEADING.

He is going down. This is it. I will not be happy until he is in jail.

He bloody well made it worse, cutting funding, opening up the marsh lands.

Forget PlameGate, Downing street, he must go down for this. His gult is clear, and any media outlet who does not cover this real issue, will go down with him.

BASTARD.

[lancdem]

1. He doesn't give a fuck

It's not an election year.

[bribri16]

2. You know, we had all better get our families together and draw up some

disaster plans for all situations. I guarantee you, this nation is going to face more disasters surpassing this one in the future...it's all over our Karma and the funddies will tell you it's in scripture.

[madokie]

3. sorry bastard

Its hard for me to set back and witness this unable to help
Where is my President, Bill

[BrklynLiberal]

4. I wish I could be as sure as you are...

[Faygo Kid]

5. Let's hope so. He will declare martial law first.

Since when has this administration concerned itself with the niceties of the Constitution and federal law? Like a wounded animal, he is most dangerous now, and if cornered, will lash back. Since he does not read newspapers, only goes to staged events and holds no press conferences, he is insulated from reality. Also, when will Dems be the opposition party? Why do we have to rely on Hagel, et al? Not to mention the quiescent media, and on the other side, the mad dog Limbaugh-Hannity-Fox News crowd. It won't be easy. I hope you are right. A complete collapse of the economy, and I mean depression (possible), a civil war in Iraq (likely) and one more terrorist incident, another hurricane or (finally) a scandal blows open, and we will see how it plays out, because he will indeed be done. But perhaps not finished.

[The Backlash Cometh]

6. I read somewhere that in early 2001 FEMA warned him about 3

potential catastrophic events that needed attention. One involved a major terrorist attack in New York City and the other was New Orleans's "bowl effect."

What was the third?

[tridim]

10. The "big one" in San Francisco

I think it was San Fran.

[back2basics909]

13. He is going down, in this instance i beleive in the American people...

"No One Can Say they Didn't See it Coming"

By Sidney Blumenthal

In 2001, FEMA warned that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S. But the Bush administration cut New Orleans flood control funding by 44 percent to pay for the Iraq war.

Biblical in its uncontrolled rage and scope, Hurricane Katrina has left millions of Americans to scavenge for food and shelter and hundreds to thousands reportedly dead. With its main levee broken, the evacuated city of New Orleans has become part of the Gulf of Mexico. But the damage wrought by the hurricane may not entirely be the result of an act of nature.

A year ago the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed to study how New Orleans could be protected from a catastrophic hurricane, but the Bush administration ordered that the research not be undertaken. After a flood killed six people in 1995, Congress created the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, in which the Corps of Engineers strengthened and renovated levees and pumping stations. In early 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency issued a report stating that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S., including a terrorist attack on New York City. But 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 (for a total reduction in funding of 44.2 percent since 2001) forced the New Orleans district of the Corps to impose a hiring freeze. The Senate had debated adding funds for fixing New Orleans' levees, but it was too late.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune, which before the hurricane published a series on the federal funding problem, and whose presses are now underwater, reported online: "No one can say they didn't see it coming ... Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation."

The Bush administration's policy of turning over wetlands to developers almost certainly also contributed to the heightened level of the storm surge. In 1990, a federal task force began restoring lost wetlands surrounding New Orleans. Every two miles of wetland between the Crescent City and the Gulf reduces a surge by half a foot. Bush had promised "no net loss" of wetlands, a policy launched by his father's administration and bolstered by President Clinton. But he reversed his approach in 2003, unleashing the developers. The Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency then announced they could no longer protect wetlands unless they were somehow related to interstate commerce.

In response to this potential crisis, four leading environmental groups conducted a joint expert study, concluding in 2004 that without wetlands protection New Orleans could be devastated by an ordinary, much less a Category 4 or 5, hurricane. "There's no way to describe how mindless a policy that is when it comes to wetlands protection," said one of the report's authors. The chairman of the White House's Council on Environmental Quality dismissed the study as "highly questionable," and boasted, "Everybody loves what we're doing."

"My administration's climate change policy will be science based," President Bush declared in June 2001. But in 2002, when the Environmental Protection Agency submitted a study on global warming to the United Nations reflecting its expert research, Bush derided it as "a report put out by a bureaucracy," and excised the climate change assessment from the agency's annual report. The next year, when the EPA issued its first comprehensive "Report on the Environment," stating, "Climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment," the White House simply demanded removal of the line and all similar conclusions. At the G-8 meeting in Scotland this year, Bush successfully stymied any common action on global warming. Scientists, meanwhile, have continued to accumulate impressive data on the rising temperature of the oceans, which has produced more severe hurricanes.

In February 2004, 60 of the nation's leading scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, warned in a statement, "Restoring Scientific Integrity in Policymaking": "Successful application of science has played a large part in the policies that have made the United States of America the world's most powerful nation and its citizens increasingly prosperous and healthy ... Indeed, this principle has long been adhered to by presidents and administrations of both parties in forming and implementing policies. The administration of George W. Bush has, however, disregarded this principle ... The distortion of scientific knowledge for partisan political ends must cease." Bush completely ignored this statement.

In the two weeks preceding the storm in the Gulf, the trumping of science by ideology and expertise by special interests accelerated. The Federal Drug Administration announced that it was postponing sale of the morning-after contraceptive pill, despite overwhelming scientific evidence of its safety and its approval by the FDA's scientific advisory board. The United Nations special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa accused the Bush administration of responsibility for a condom shortage in Uganda -- the result of the administration's evangelical Christian agenda of "abstinence." When the chief of the Bureau of Justice Statistics in the Justice Department was ordered by the White House to delete its study that African-Americans and other minorities are subject to racial profiling in police traffic stops and he refused to buckle under, he was forced out of his job. When the Army Corps of Engineers' chief contracting oversight analyst objected to a $7 billion no-bid contract awarded for work in Iraq to Halliburton (the firm at which Vice President Cheney was formerly CEO), she was demoted despite her superior professional ratings. At the National Park Service, a former Cheney aide, a political appointee lacking professional background, drew up a plan to overturn past environmental practices and prohibit any mention of evolution while allowing sale of religious materials through the Park Service.

On the day the levees burst in New Orleans, Bush delivered a speech in Colorado comparing the Iraq war to World War II and himself to Franklin D. Roosevelt: "And he knew that the best way to bring peace and stability to the region was by bringing freedom to Japan." Bush had boarded his very own "Streetcar Named Desire."

Sidney Blumenthal, a former assistant and senior advisor to President Clinton and the author of "The Clinton Wars," is writing a column for Salon and the Guardian of London.

[LetsGoMurphys]

7. did he refuse to give federal help? n/t

[lateo]

8. How many times have I heard this before...

Ain't gonna happen...

[Totally Committed]

9. And he gave tax breaks to the rich in a time of war,

further depleting the coffers and making it even more difficult to help these poor people out!

Filthy ratbastard!

TC

[DELUSIONAL]

11. I just posted -- Military waiting for the Prez in order to ACT

Cmdr. of US Northern Command tells CNN "if and when the president decides to step it up" he will act
by John in DC - 8/31/2005 02:53:00 PM
If and when? IF AND WHEN?

We've known about this approaching disaster for well over 5 days, we've had the disaster for well over 2 days, and the commander of the US Northern Command, an Admiral no less, is talking about "if and when" the president decides to step up his response to the hurricane?

Huh?

Of course, Bush did only just get off Air Force One in DC, carrying his dog, no less, so I'm sure he's still in vacation mode. You know how it is. Funny it took him 8 hours to fly from Texas to DC, since he's only arriving here at 3pm EST. Even with the detour over New Orleans, it shouldn't have taken a jet 8 hours to fly from Texas to DC. (I say 8 hours because I assume, in the face of such a horrific crisis, the president immediately got on his plane this morning at 8am and flew back to DC.) Unless of course Bush delayed his vacation even more this morning.

This is Adm. Timothy Keating on CNN right now:
As you know, as you just said, initially, principally a local law enfrocement effort. If and when the president decides to step it up and use active duty forces, we will be, and it would be at almost certainly the request of the governor of Louisiana or Missippi... we would be able to respond with any number of options.

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/08/cmdr-of-us-northern-command-tells-cnn.html

IMPEACH THE BASTARD -- NOW!

[suegeo]

12. They own the media, they control the voting machines

Sorry, I'd like to believe they are going to be in trouble for this, but there is SO MUCH crime they have not been held accountable for, I cannot get my hopes up.

The media will spin spin spin, and they republicans will be (wrongly) portrayed as steadfast leaders. Already, the fascists are out on the whore t.v. shows claiming that nobody predicted it would be this bad. Which is Orwellian, because just DAYS ago, it was reported that it was a monster storm.

Christ, can anyone of these "journalists" give me an "I see five lights" statement (or whatever the phrase was that Eric Blair used in his book.)

Worshipping the tv god, the sheep will now rally behind the little incompetent prick. And the polls and votes will be manipulated to make it seem like more than the core, brainwashed 30% of Bush's al queda (the bae) supports the turd.

We had people running through the streets of NYC and DC for their lives in 2001, planes crashing down, buildings destroyed. And the Bush fool sits there, listening to a pet goat story, and does nothing while this is happening. To say nothing of preventing the attack in the months before.

And the stupid stupid sheep continued to support "their team", even after there was time for the shock to wear off, and it was pretty clear that, at best, these guys were incompetent, or complicit in the attack.

The more they fuck up, the better they do.

[chaska]

14. What's that about the marshlands? Not familiar.

[back2basics909]

15. Bloody Englishman, i guess the correct term would be wetlands.. sorry.

"No One Can Say they Didn't See it Coming"

By Sidney Blumenthal

In 2001, FEMA warned that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S. But the Bush administration cut New Orleans flood control funding by 44 percent to pay for the Iraq war.

Biblical in its uncontrolled rage and scope, Hurricane Katrina has left millions of Americans to scavenge for food and shelter and hundreds to thousands reportedly dead. With its main levee broken, the evacuated city of New Orleans has become part of the Gulf of Mexico. But the damage wrought by the hurricane may not entirely be the result of an act of nature.

A year ago the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed to study how New Orleans could be protected from a catastrophic hurricane, but the Bush administration ordered that the research not be undertaken. After a flood killed six people in 1995, Congress created the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, in which the Corps of Engineers strengthened and renovated levees and pumping stations. In early 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency issued a report stating that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S., including a terrorist attack on New York City. But 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 (for a total reduction in funding of 44.2 percent since 2001) forced the New Orleans district of the Corps to impose a hiring freeze. The Senate had debated adding funds for fixing New Orleans' levees, but it was too late.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune, which before the hurricane published a series on the federal funding problem, and whose presses are now underwater, reported online: "No one can say they didn't see it coming ... Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation."

The Bush administration's policy of turning over wetlands to developers almost certainly also contributed to the heightened level of the storm surge. In 1990, a federal task force began restoring lost wetlands surrounding New Orleans. Every two miles of wetland between the Crescent City and the Gulf reduces a surge by half a foot. Bush had promised "no net loss" of wetlands, a policy launched by his father's administration and bolstered by President Clinton. But he reversed his approach in 2003, unleashing the developers. The Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency then announced they could no longer protect wetlands unless they were somehow related to interstate commerce.

In response to this potential crisis, four leading environmental groups conducted a joint expert study, concluding in 2004 that without wetlands protection New Orleans could be devastated by an ordinary, much less a Category 4 or 5, hurricane. "There's no way to describe how mindless a policy that is when it comes to wetlands protection," said one of the report's authors. The chairman of the White House's Council on Environmental Quality dismissed the study as "highly questionable," and boasted, "Everybody loves what we're doing."

"My administration's climate change policy will be science based," President Bush declared in June 2001. But in 2002, when the Environmental Protection Agency submitted a study on global warming to the United Nations reflecting its expert research, Bush derided it as "a report put out by a bureaucracy," and excised the climate change assessment from the agency's annual report. The next year, when the EPA issued its first comprehensive "Report on the Environment," stating, "Climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment," the White House simply demanded removal of the line and all similar conclusions. At the G-8 meeting in Scotland this year, Bush successfully stymied any common action on global warming. Scientists, meanwhile, have continued to accumulate impressive data on the rising temperature of the oceans, which has produced more severe hurricanes.

In February 2004, 60 of the nation's leading scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, warned in a statement, "Restoring Scientific Integrity in Policymaking": "Successful application of science has played a large part in the policies that have made the United States of America the world's most powerful nation and its citizens increasingly prosperous and healthy ... Indeed, this principle has long been adhered to by presidents and administrations of both parties in forming and implementing policies. The administration of George W. Bush has, however, disregarded this principle ... The distortion of scientific knowledge for partisan political ends must cease." Bush completely ignored this statement.

In the two weeks preceding the storm in the Gulf, the trumping of science by ideology and expertise by special interests accelerated. The Federal Drug Administration announced that it was postponing sale of the morning-after contraceptive pill, despite overwhelming scientific evidence of its safety and its approval by the FDA's scientific advisory board. The United Nations special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa accused the Bush administration of responsibility for a condom shortage in Uganda -- the result of the administration's evangelical Christian agenda of "abstinence." When the chief of the Bureau of Justice Statistics in the Justice Department was ordered by the White House to delete its study that African-Americans and other minorities are subject to racial profiling in police traffic stops and he refused to buckle under, he was forced out of his job. When the Army Corps of Engineers' chief contracting oversight analyst objected to a $7 billion no-bid contract awarded for work in Iraq to Halliburton (the firm at which Vice President Cheney was formerly CEO), she was demoted despite her superior professional ratings. At the National Park Service, a former Cheney aide, a political appointee lacking professional background, drew up a plan to overturn past environmental practices and prohibit any mention of evolution while allowing sale of religious materials through the Park Service.

On the day the levees burst in New Orleans, Bush delivered a speech in Colorado comparing the Iraq war to World War II and himself to Franklin D. Roosevelt: "And he knew that the best way to bring peace and stability to the region was by bringing freedom to Japan." Bush had boarded his very own "Streetcar Named Desire."

Sidney Blumenthal, a former assistant and senior advisor to President Clinton and the author of "The Clinton Wars," is writing a column for Salon and the Guardian of London.