Army Troops Met with Despair, Not Violence

Story here.

Uh.... The Army is Doing What?

Nice to know bullets are in good supply even if food, medical care, and proper shelter are (fucking) not.

From the Army Times:

Combat operations are underway on the streets “to take this city back” in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

“This place is going to look like Little Somalia,” Brig. Gen. Gary Jones, commander of the Louisiana National Guard’s Joint Task Force told Army Times Friday as hundreds of armed troops under his charge prepared to launch a massive citywide security mission from a staging area outside the Louisiana Superdome. “We’re going to go out and take this city back. This will be a combat operation to get this city under control.”

Remember how little anarchy there was in the first few days? Desperate people were not behaving violently.

I don't suppose a lack of response and aid had anything to do with the change to alleged anarchy, could it?

News Flash: Bush Lied (again and again and... oh yes, again)

Here.

So far, two NOLA police officers have committed suicide on duty.

Pollster Refuses to Poll for Pro-Impeachment Sentiment

According to this piece, Gallup has specifically refused to run a poll asking how many Americans think Bush should be canned like the mystery meat called Spam.

My Pet Goat: The Sequel

From the erudite Greg Mitchell at Ed and Pub (please read it all):

This time, during a catastrophe, the president did not merely dither for seven minutes, but for three days, and his top advisors followed suit. While the media has done a good job in portraying the overall failure of leadership in this weeks hurricane's disaster, it has not focused enough on this deadly dereliction of duty.

While a rising chorus in the press has taken the White House, FEMA and the Pentagon to task for performing miserably in their response to the human disaster on the Gulf Coast, few have focused on the most telling aspect of the entire failure.

It’s not just incompetence. It’s a shameful lack of concern: The 9/11 “My Pet Goat” dithering on an administration-wide scale.Simply stated, the president and his top advisers chose vacation over action.While the media has done a good job in portraying the overall deadly failure of leadership, it has not focused enough on this deadly dereliction of duty. President Bush, in his weekly radio address on Saturday, said: “In America, we do not abandon our fellow citizens in their hour of need.” But Bush, and his top aides, quite frankly, did just that.

I was reminded of this today, seeing pictures of Vice President Dick Cheney finally showing up at the White House after riding out the storm-of-the-century in Wyoming. Perhaps he brought back with him a couple dozen trout to throw on the grill for the White House staffers.

His absence, and the president’s performance during it, can only add to the rumors that Bush is clueless without the Big Guy at his side.

This follows Bush himself remaining on vacation for more than two days after the storm hit, despite acknowledging this was the worst disaster in the nation’s history. He did take a trip during those days, not back to Washington but out to San Diego to deliver a political speech comparing his Iraq war to World War II. It got little play because nearly everyone else in the country, beyond his inner circle, was focused on New Orleans instead.

Editor and Publisher: Newspapers Conservative and Not Are Raging at This President

Well deserved, IMHO.

Bush 404 Error: This President Not Found

Mad Kane brings us this treat. Hint: look twice.

Thank you, Mad!

Words from Jesus' General

I missed them when they originally appeared at General JC Christian's site, but he kindly reprises them for us here.

The Resignation of the FEMA Director is NOT Enough

Only one man cuts the legs off FEMA so they could not respond.

That man is named George Walker Bush.

Where's the Dick? Indeed

From Xan at Corrente asking the eternal question - considering Cheney stayed on vacation in Wyoming all this week (I mean, they were just poor people affected, right?)....

Hmmmm...(via Edmonton Journal)

U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney has postponed his visit to Alberta in order to tend to duties at home in the wake of hurricane Katrina.

Marisa Etmanski, spokeswoman for Alberta Premier Ralph Klein, says the White House contacted Klein's office Saturday.Cheney had planned to visit Alberta on Thursday and Friday, stopping first in Calgary and then visiting Fort McMurray and touring the oilsands. Etmanski said Klein's reaction to Cheney's change of plans was nothing but understanding.

And His Vice Dear Leaderliness has done precisely what in the way of "duties" since Katrina hit? Yeah, I know, he "issued a statement" (which turned out to be from a spokeswoman); supposedly stood up with Dear Leader at that strangely militaristic press appearance yesterday (I sure never saw him on camera live) and there was one (still) photo of him and Rove and some other flunky, which for all we know could have been taken months ago.

Weekend at Bernie's, anyone? Or is Lynn Cheney's lesser known other novel (The Body Politic) the story we're watching play out here?

Impeachment

I thought long and hard over this last night. It is not a partisan decision and is separate from ALL else we know about his actions that might lead a sane person to question whether the time has come....

Bush, once again, was on vacation while America suffered. He KNEW he had cut FEMA's ability to respond to shreds. We now know that he ignored special pleas from Gov Blanco of Louisiana even before Katrina struck.

Since then, almost everything that involved government's efforts has been a dismal failure that not only didn't get help to people who needed it, they have worked long and hard to keep anyone ELSE from getting in to help. He stopped rescue and food efforts for his photo ops down there.

Folks, it is time to remove him. He must be impeached before he endangers yet more. The time to act is now. I'm going to research whether anyone else is organizing this and, if they aren't, I will. It will probably come to naught, but this cancer must be removed. It should have been surgically extracted LONG ago; in fact, there's evidence he never should have been in office at all.

Tens of thousands dead in Katrina

And a rescue effort that took nearly a week to get underway.

As happy as I was to see 29 trucks filled in Montpelier, VT the last two days - they thought they might fill two - with clothes, food, and plenty of pet food, I wonder if any of that pet food will ever see those poor animals who were just left. They're in shock and dying, too.

And like with the humans, the authorities aren't allowing anyone in to help.

Any Thoughts on the Loss of Rehnquist

I mean, besides my multiple-fuckety fuck message?

Can you just imagine the loonball Bush will bring us?

Say Hello to

Nola.com.

Chicago Trip: Bush Made Fatal Changes to FEMA to Weaken its Ability to Cope with Disasters

Story here.

And then there's this:

Three tons of food ready for delivery by air to refugees in St. Bernard Parish and on Algiers Point sat on the Crescent City Connection bridge Friday afternoon as air traffic was halted because of President Bush’s visit to New Orleans, officials said.

The provisions, secured by U.S. Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-Napoleonville, and state Agriculture Commissioner Bob Odom, baked in the afternoon sun as Bush surveyed damage across southeast Louisiana five days after Katrina made landfall as a Category 4 storm, said Melancon’s chief of staff, Casey O’Shea.

“We had arrangements to airlift food by helicopter to these folks, and now the food is sitting in trucks because they won’t let helicopters fly,” O’Shea said Friday afternoon.The food was expected to be in the hands of storm survivors after the president left the devastated region Friday night, he said.

John McCain

I see Morbo at The Carpetbagger Report feels about the same way about John McCain I do. This man's a bit too erratic and happy to be a toady for my tastes.

What I Buy, What I Don't

Obviously, there has been huge amounts of speculation over NOLA. I mean, how does any organization, let alone a huge mass of them, all manage to fail at once and all manage to fail this spectacularly. I mean, I think we'd all admit this isn't bad: this is Herculean, Rube Goldberg-duz-Michael Jackson-duz-Keystone Kops horrific.

Some of the speculation has is that the Bushies deliberately hung Blanco, Landrieu and other dems out to dry by deliberately withholding any aid. As stories of the horror began to leak out, reporters were threatened and they tried to toss all reporters out of the city citing "martial law".

The press thing is typical Bush. They feel they own the press, and because the press today largely is mega-corps, they do to some degree.

But instead, here's what I believe: Bush has been destroying things right and left: public education, health care, Social Security, jobs and job security, the economy. This failure was at least in part deliberate, and done to assure people of the Grover Norquist philosophy that you can't trust government. The Bushies were just lucky - and knew from a very recent report which sat at the top of dozens and dozens of others - that NOLA was especially susceptible and, filled with poor, powerless blacks so Bushies felt they could make an example of how government does not work without taking the heat they would elsewhere.

Some People Believe At Least One Levee Deliberately Blown to Protect Wealthier Homes

Read this from Louise posting at DailyKos:

Friends of mine live in Dallas, and their next-door-neighbor had 9 relatives roll up from New Orleans two days ago. Their house is gone. The whole block is putting together a fund-raising party on Saturday, and the landlord of a vacant house down the street has given them three months' occupancy rent-free.

But that's not the real news. The real news is the story that the relatives tell. They lived near the 17th St. Canal, and their whole neighborhood heard two explosions that they swear was dynomite on Monday night. Perhaps it was the sound of the levees collapsing, but the people there are convinced that the levee was blown.

The theory is that the poor section of town was sacrificed to save the other, wealthier sections.

Of course it matters whether or not such an act actually occurred, but what's scarier is that so many NO residents believe that it did.

That idea - that the Corps of Engineers, a Pentagon entity, blew the levee is only going to get thrown into the mix of the incredibly slow response of the Feds, the fact that they ignored Blanco's requests, and that they won't let the Red Cross in.

Quick Roundup of Katrina Links

Bush Administration rejecting offers of assistance from the Sun-Times.

Do we need a man like this at the helm? The head of the Dept of Homeland Bullshit Security was praising FEMA for its unprecedentedly wonderful response on Thursday. Praise?

NOLA refugees kept waiting for food so Laura Bush could finish her leisurely meal.

Some Refugees Fired Upon, Killed

From Reuters:

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - People left homeless by Hurricane Katrina told horrific stories of rape, murder and trigger happy guards in two New Orleans centers that were set up as shelters but became places of violence and terror.

Police and National Guard troops on Saturday closed down the two centers -- the Superdome arena and the city's convention center -- but them penned them in outside in sweltering heat to keep them from trying to walk out of the city.

Military helicopters and buses staged a massive evacuation to take away thousands of people who waited in orderly lines in stifling heat outside the flooded convention center.

The refugees, who were waiting to be taken to sports stadiums and other huge shelters across Texas and northern Louisiana, described how the convention center and the Superdome became lawless hellholes beset by rape and murder.

Several residents of the impromptu shantytown recounted two horrific incidents where those charged with keeping people safe had killed them instead.

In one, a young man was run down and then shot by a New Orleans police officer, in another a man seeking help was gunned down by a National Guard soldier, witnesses said.

Police here refused to discuss or confirm either incident. National Guard spokesman Lt. Col Pete Schneider said "I have not heard any information of a weapon being discharged."

"They killed a man here last night," Steve Banka, 28, told Reuters. "A young lady was being raped and stabbed. And the sounds of her screaming got to this man and so he ran out into the street to get help from troops, to try to flag down a passing truck of them, and he jumped up on the truck's windshield and they shot him dead."