I absolutely demand on behalf of those who died that there be a REAL investigation into Katrina

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

If Joe Lieberman can't and won't do it - there are other Dems and other committees whether in the Senate or the House who can mount a complete investigation about:

Brownie's recent comments that the White House was playing politics when lives were at stake

When did they really find out about the levees breaching?

Why didn't they mount a halfway competent search and rescue mission when lives could have been saved?

How were contracts awarded?

Why was free help, supplies and rescuers turned away?

Why did they let people starve and dehydrate in plain sight on roofs and overpasses?

Why could reporters freely come and go and yet they (our leaders) claimed it was too dangerous for the National Guard

What politics are they playing with reconstruction money right this moment?

[TheDebbieDee]

1. Maybe there's a Congressional Panel

that can do the same kind of investigation. Can't Rep. John Conyers look into it?

[IndyOp]

4. Kucinich...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x3170845#3170885

[salin]

20. I read that and thought *Fantastic!*

Kucinich is fearless.

[Virginia Dare]

2. A CRIMINAL investigation...

nothing less. Multiple individuals should go to jail over it, possibly including Bush.

[IndyOp]

3. Contact Kucinich - Chair of House Oversight Committee that has jurisdiction...

He is the new Chairman of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of Government Oversight.


This subcommittee has jurisdiction over the following departments of the federal government:
Department of Health and Human Services
Department of Housing and Urban Development
Department of Interior
Department of Justice
Department of Labor

...and a whole, whole lot more: http://kucinich.us/node/2085

I called and emailed Dennis last week about the plans to close public housing in New Orleans that was only minimally damaged by Katrina.

Contact information: http://kucinich.house.gov/

:hi:

[crickets]

21. I saw something about that in Greg Palast's piece on Katrina

He went to a public housing project with one of the citizens who had been locked out of her own home (barricaded out, really) though there was no real hurricane damage. It's bad enough when people can't return to live in homes that were destroyed, but to lock people out of their undamaged homes is wrong. It's a sick land grab, it's criminal, and I hope that Dennis can get to the bottom of that as well as the rest of the mess. Thanks for the contact links, IndyOp.

Most DUers have probably seen it already, but here's the link to Palast's special report. People who missed it before now, please go take a look. It's well worth the time and bandwidth.

New Orleans: Big Easy to Big Empty
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7721859326791373209

[Swamp Rat]

5. Yeah you rite!

:grr:

[Solly Mack]

6. Agreed..and recommended

[nam78_two]

7. Agreed-K&R.nt

[rodeodance]

8. what about the Senators for LA??????

[Tatiana]

19. Good question. Landrieu campaigned for Lieberman. n/t

[Wizard777]

28. They should be able to get some help now.

The Republicans all but officially accused Mary of Corruption for having the nerve to request money to get the affected area's economy going again. Bush's surge includes an economy stimulation package for Iraq. Apparently Bush hasn't heard that Iraq has oil and that stuff is worth big bucks these days. But why shouldn't trillionares get welfare from Bush? The billionares do.

[seabeyond]

33. there was a thread on this. had lieberman and landruies number

i called the office. but not many on the thread. would be nifty if du had a call campaign and we really put out the effort. she is on the committe with lieberman. her person that answered said she was going to try to get the papers promised to lieberman. i told him she needed to do more than try, ... she needed to get it done. and obligation to all those that died and suffered because of bush mishandling

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

9. kickety kick - investigate now!

Brownies new statements could certainly be used as the impetus.

[Cass]

10. Agreed 100%.

What happened in NOLA cannot be swept under the rug and it cannot go unpunished.

[Rosemary2205]

11. I want to know why in hell people still haven't been paid.

The lawyers in the insurance companies and the government are still fighting with each other over who pays - one property at a time - and there are still people who have not have their claims paid off.

It's assinine.

[leftofthedial]

12. there is no end to the investigations that need to be done

but KAtrina is the top of the list

it was outright murder of Americans and destruction of an American city.

Nature caused the problem, but negligence made it much worse, killed people and destroyed New Orleans.

[lonestarnot]

13. I demand it too!

[candidate]

14. Ridiculous

People, it was a *hurricane.* The city government under-estimated it and FEMA under-estimated it. There's no need for a massive political witch hunt because of an unfortunate natural disaster (HINT: the key word here is NATURAL).

While we're at it maybe we should arrest members of the Indonesian government for the Asian Tsunami. /sarcasm

Let it go already. You can blame the Bush administration for many screw-ups over the past six years, but a HURRICANE is not one of them. Be sensible.

[crickets]

15. No one is blaming the Bush administration for "a hurricane"

The Bush administration is being blamed for not taking proper steps to prepare before the storm struck, as well as for not taking proper steps to prevent or ameliorate as much suffering as possible during and after the storm.


Gone with the Water - October 2004
http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature5/index.html

When did this calamity happen? It hasn't—yet. But the doomsday scenario is not far-fetched. The Federal Emergency Management Agency lists a hurricane strike on New Orleans as one of the most dire threats to the nation, up there with a large earthquake in California or a terrorist attack on New York City. Even the Red Cross no longer opens hurricane shelters in the city, claiming the risk to its workers is too great.

(Lost wetlands and faulty/insufficient infrastructure were recognized as a recipe for worst case scenario well beforehand. The Katrina disaster was not a surprise.)


A Disaster Waiting to Happen - 09 28 04
http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/2004-09-28/cover_story.html

As FEMA weathers Bush administration policy changes, some insiders fear that concerns over terrorism are trumping protection from hurricanes and other natural hazards.


Homeland Insecurity - 09 28 04
http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/2004-09-28/cover_story2.html

Louisiana should have been high on the list for FEMA's biggest disaster mitigation grant program -- so why did the state get nothing?


The long, strange resurrection of New Orleans - 08 21 06
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/08/21/8383661/index.htm

A central disagreement was the scope of federal responsibility. After providing aid for emergency services, the administration wanted to focus on the levee system, which Washington had long ago accepted as its purview, and on homeowners lacking flood insurance outside the officially designated floodplain - who had, at least in part, based their decision not to buy flood insurance on the grounds that the feds had stated their area was not at risk.

Most New Orleanians had a different view of Uncle Sam's role. In a phrase heard again and again in the city, Katrina was a disaster made in Washington, not New Orleans. In most places water did not "overtop" the levees - the levees were broken by a storm surge they were supposed to withstand. In May a research team sponsored by the National Science Foundation and co-led by Robert Bea, a University of California at Berkeley engineering professor, concluded that these breaches, where the levees failed to meet design specifications, were responsible for four-fifths of the water that inundated greater New Orleans.

"The levees were designed incorrectly and built incorrectly," Bea says. A former chief engineer for Shell, Bea designed scores of offshore oil platforms - "I've spent my whole professional life with hurricanes, so I'm kind of blunt about them." Absent design and construction failures, he says, Katrina would have caused nothing more than "a few wet carpets and missing shingles." (A forthcoming report by Louisiana State reaches a similar verdict.)

At the lunch with Powell, the LRA's Reilly argued that "if you live behind a federally warranted levee and that levee fails, you shouldn't be penalized if you don't have flood insurance," because the government has effectively promised householders that they won't need insurance for those circumstances. Therefore, Washington had a moral obligation to all New Orleanians damaged by the flood, even the un- or underinsured.

(emphasis added)

------

The horrific lack of response and aid (and blocked aid efforts) which occurred afterwards and is still occurring is well documented. If you haven't noticed this, your eyes have been closed. Some do see Bush administration's handling of Katrina as criminal, and for legal as well as moral reasons will not "let it go."

Welcome to DU.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

22. None of the questions I posed blame them in any way for a hurricane

But I do blame them for their RESPONSE to the hurricane which we all saw in real time on TV. Real people died because of their screw-ups. I guess you just better hope the natural disaster doesn't happen in your neck of the woods the next time around.

They were incompetent, corrupt, politicized, inhumane BOOBS and lives were lost due to their actions and inactions. I am in no way willing to "let it go already".

[Raksha]

30. Enjoy your stay.

:hi:

[Major Hogwash]

41. There was no under-estimation.

Not at the federal level, not at the state level, not at the county level, nor at the city level. They all knew what was coming 24 hours before it hit.

It was the inaction of the federal government to do anything AFTER Hurricane Katrina hit that exposed the Bush administration as the "smoke and mirrors" admin that everyone else suspected they really were to the rest of the world.

The media couldn't just look the other way after the videos that showed the amount of the devastation that took place in New Orleans appeared on the internet.

"Let it go already" - what a concept!
That's the same thing they're saying about the Iraq war since they didn't find any WMD's.
That's the same thing they told us after the Vietnam war.

1300 dead people and you want everyone to "let it go already".

Only someone without a conscience could say that.

[Tatiana]

16. Contact the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
U.S. House of Representatives
2157 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
[phone]

http://oversight.house.gov/contact.asp

Waxman had tried, for some time, as a member of the minority party to hold hearings on the federal response to Katrina. It's sad, as the Oversight Committee already has much on its plate, but we need to email or write the members and request an investigation of the Katrina disaster. Here is some of what Waxman has done on the topic already:

http://oversight.house.gov/investigations.asp?Issue=Hurricane+Katrina+Response

Screw Lieberman. We need to know exactly what happened.

[porphyrian]

17. You got my vote. Can we impeach them all now? - n/t

[Little Star]

18. I'm with ya!!!! k&r

[pitohui]

23. i agree EOM

,

[rudy23]

24. Especially since the latest revelations from Brownie that Rove sabotaged LA--impeacheable emails

I am willing to bet a million dollars that the emails that Joe Lieberman weaseled his way in place to protect, containt more that enough info to impeach the whole lot of 'em.

[Hidden Stillness]

25. As Evil as the Rest of Their Crimes

There are many huge issues and possible crimes here, as criminal an operation as Halliburton/Iraq, etc., and Cheney's secret energy panel. Why did they do nothing day after day, as people were clearly drowning, hungry and thirsty, on TV? Why did it take a Federal Judge ordering the Bush Administration to finally, finally, start making disaster aid payments to the families who lost their homes? Why were only Bush/Cheney?Republican cronies given no-bid rebuilding contracts, no local contractors hired, and why has almost no building even been done, all this time later? Why were the levees never fortified over the years, no matter how legislators from Louisisana requested money for it, and why, over the few days that the hurricane approached, weren't they reinforced? Why were known wind damage claims denied, and all wind damage called water or flood damage, putting all costs onto the Federal budget of FEMA rather than the homeowners' policy? Many people, able to prove the wind damage claim, have started to win in court over this. Why has the Bush Administration not sued on their behalf? Why have the silly schemes such as untraceable credit cards, which were subject to massive, untraceable fraud (pretend Republicans did not steal and funnel all the untraceable money into their own accounts, just like Iraq) been used?

Why were virtually all construction projects conducted under layers and layers of contracting, subcontracting, and sub-subcontracting, again untraceable? A study by the (I think it was) GAO or Congressional Budget Office showed that if they had just paid every single homeowner a direct cash payment for the full value of the home, or instead, just bought everyone a new home, it would have cost less than all the fraud, waste and abuse that the Bush Administration ended up costing. Ice trucks not allowed to go to Louisiana, volunteers turned away, etc., etc. Why was FEMA reduced from a stand-alone Cabinet-level Department to an underfunded part of an unrelated morass of Agencies? Sabotage? Why was a complete incompetant chosen to run it?

As for this being "nature," it is not nature when the protective barrier islands and swamp are cleared away for commercial development, and it is not nature when things that once were built well are now cheated on, and built to substandard quality. This reminds me of a Phil Donahue program from 1992, after Hurricane Andrew I think it was, hit Florida. Phil Donahue and a home-builder from that very area toured the neighborhood in a golf cart, seeing all the totally destroyed houses--"nature"? Suddenly, on the next block, every single house was not only still standing, but seemed almost untouched, even though trees were fallen, all around. The reason: this builder could not with any conscience build houses with cheap, cheesy staples to hold it together, (as all others did), but instead still used strong nails for everything. Not one of that builder's houses suffered real damage. (Come back, Phil Donahue!)

This is going to be really important, it will show how completely mercenary, evil, and collusive this Administration is, with its corporate lobbyists, its own corporations, and all the rest of the filth. If anything will make the American people hate these devils, it will be learning the kinds of stories that will come out of a real investigation--of everything that happened.

[intheflow]

26. Politics and reconstruction money

That's what I've been wondering down here on the Mississippi Coast. Barbour is doling out the reconstruction money slowly, stingily, and in phases that are meant to weed out "undeserving" people. I've been wondering what's being done with the interest from all the federal monies as it waits to be doled out.

K&R :kick:

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

27. Please take a moment and read this

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/8/2/104640/1838

It's the single most powerful story I have ever read about Katrina.

When I read this I was blown away. Even more so when I reflected how this story was just one of many thousand and each in their own individual nuances would have been just as or even more devastating than this story.

Whenever I saw the TV or a newspaper story, I always thought - that could be me and my family. It could have been. It could have been you.

[truedelphi]

34. That was a beautifully written account, so SAD so Mucking

Heart Breaking SAD

The "suits had written the city off" Yes, they had. And the "dresses too" I'll add

(I won't ever forget Barbara Bush Sr saying that the blacks newly re-located to Houston had never had it so good. I won't ever forget Condi Mucking RIce out there shopping for SHOES, Designer Shoes,for Chris-sake.)

And I remember too the newsreport wtih Diane Sawyer and her news crew roaming the CIty of NO in their newsmobile.

And she is on part of the freeway system near that bridge where the suburban Sheriff and his men held back surviviors of the FLooding,survivors who had BEEN TOLD by authorities to go to that bridge and leave by that suburb - but no, they are turned back at gunpoint

So Sawyer and her crew spot a motley group of college kids traipsing along the desrted freeway. She stops the vehickle and gets out and queries them and the group of four or five tell their horrific stories.

They were so motley they looked dishevelled in the way people at WOodstock had looked decades ago - but Woodstock youth were happy and ecstatic and these youngsters had looked into the gaping maws of death and were still held there in death's clasp.

Then one of the girls says shyly: "Your cellphone? Does it have power?

And Sawyer gently hands the young woman her phone. 'It will be long distance to Ohio," the young woman queries. "Is it okay?" Sawyer says YES!

The young woman dials a number, and then "Daddy? Daddy!"

You can only imagine the guy, sitting next to a phone in whatever intact neighborhood he occupied in Ohio, just sitting for DAYS waiting for someone to call AND NOW now here is his daughter's voice. And she is crying, not just with relief but with all the pent up grief and panic and probably rage too because for days she and her friends had lived through a nightmare.



And in thirty seconds the girl secures her father's promise that he is on his way.

I will never forgive those who had something to do with the help not coming, and the individuals who tried to help being turned away

Personally the hell I wish for George W Bush is the weird tortured world of New Orleans in the week right after that levee break. May he live there in that horror for eternity.

[Nicole]

29. Absolutely

K & R

[peekaloo]

31. Kick.

What if Brownie actually ends up doing a heckuva job in bringing these bastards to pay for their crimes?????

:kick:

[truedelphi]

32. WHy have they tried to arrest and convict those who were trying to help

[OneBlueSky]

35. while we're at it, let's have a REAL investigation of 9/11, too . . . n/t

.

[farmboxer]

36. Leiberman is so selfish and low

Lieberman is so low, lower than low.

[AtomicKitten]

37. Katrina is OUR disgrace.

One that we need to get to the bottom of. Enough of sweeping the felonies into a pile in the corner. The Dems were voted into office to do the work of the people, and the people want accountability and SOMEONE to answer for the apathy that resulted in the death of our fellow citizens and their beloved pets. Shame on us if we don't DEMAND it.

[Skittles]

38. I ABSOLUTELY AGREE

those images are seared in my memory for the rest of my days and I want to know WHAT HAPPENED and WHAT DID NOT HAPPEN

[Pooka Fey]

39. I want * , Brownie, & Condishoes to burn in an eternal unquenchable hellfire for this

after they have been investigated, convicted, impeached and jailed, of course :cry:

[Major Hogwash]

40. The Bush administration was drowned by the catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina.

At no other time in the 5 year history of the Bush administration was it more obvious that this administration couldn't save lives - not American lives in Iraq - but lives of Americans right here in America, than during the Hurricane Katrina fiasco disaster relief effort.

[elehhhhna]

42. Yep. The US LOSES its 35th largest city while Bush et. al. are asleep at the wheel