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« Bush Not To Blame For Levee Failure | Main | Foreshadowing » September 4, 2005More Unused Buses
UPDATE: More bloggers are blogging about Nagin's failure and all those hundreds of unused buses, including Mister Snitch, Kesher Talk, and Timothy Goddard. Also, Lousiana Gov. Kathleen Babbling Blanco ordered school buses be used to evacuate New Orleans - three days after Katrina hit. Here's the official executive order. Too bad she didn't think of that a few days earlier. Bad news, Blanco: New Orleans' buses are under water. And yet more bloggers are weighing in on the blame game in New Orleans: Chuck Simmins emailed me a link to this Defense Department briefing on the situation in New Orleans. Of note in it: an assessment of the New Orleans Police Department as "significantly degraded" to "less than one-third of their original capability." Sadly, for some on the New Orleans police force, their motto post-Katrina stopped being "To Protect and To Serve" and instead became "To Abandon and To Loot." Bill at Pundit Guy blames the New Orleans police department for failing to maintain law and order. Well, when you have cops helping the looters, it's hard to argue with that. By the way, is it true that Nagin freed the prisoners in the county jail before Katrina hit? If so, he loosed killers and thugs on 100,000 poor people who had no defense and no way to escape. If so, he's insane. Comments
Oh, but, as some lawmakers are suggesting, it is much easier to just blame the crisis on racism and President Bush. Posted by: Shawn at September 4, 2005 1:29 PMThe issue isn't the buses. Even if all the buses were used, at best fewer lives would have been saved. The fact is Bush cut off funding for strengthen levees to deal with the flooding caused by the hurricane in the first place. Besides, the gas stations were shut down, traffic on the highway was already crowded, and there's no way these buses would have gotten through the floods. You neocons have given conservatism a bad name. Posted by: True Conservative at September 4, 2005 4:33 PMYou dude are one nutcase: "Besides, the gas stations were shut down, traffic on the highway was already crowded, and there's no way these buses would have gotten through the floods" they had 5 days to get folks out Christ can't ANY democrat do anything right? Posted by: vero at September 4, 2005 6:36 PMDepartment of Homeland Security: In the event of a terrorist attack, natural disaster or other large-scale emergency, the Department of Homeland Security will assume primary responsibility on March 1st for ensuring that emergency response professionals are prepared for any situation. This will entail providing a coordinated, comprehensive federal response to any large-scale crisis and mounting a swift and effective recovery effort. Posted by: Mountain Girl at September 4, 2005 7:01 PMTrue conservative--see Washington Post (not a conservative publication) I'll paste here via NRO/the Corner. PART OF THE PROBLEM? [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state's emergency operations center said Saturday. The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. "Quite frankly, if they'd been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals," said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly. A senior administration official said that Bush has clear legal authority to federalize National Guard units to quell civil disturbances under the Insurrection Act and will continue to try to unify the chains of command that are split among the president, the Louisiana governor and the New Orleans mayor. oh, the irony: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050904/ts_nm/aid_un_dc Posted by: jimbob at September 4, 2005 9:16 PMIt's pretty incredible o see even the media piling on to Bush, so as to be seen on the "right side" of the issue. My sense is that it's the lawsuits to follow that will settle the issue, but the failure of local authorities is just so central here. Here you go Bill: If this is all about a President who could not be bothered to help poor people, then why did it take JUST AS LONG for Bush to show up at the WTC - without a caravan of supplies (which weren't as needed of course), in s ituation where 'poor' and 'black' weren't concerns?. The fact is, it's your first responders that are crucial. Your mayor, your cops and so on can't sit on their asses - or cut and run - and just blame someone else. That is just a recipe for disaster. Of course NO and state officials are blaming Bush - they are not about to blame themselves. Yet I am seeing Nagin portrayed in some quarters as 'heroic'. Don't you have to actually DO something to be heroic? Sorry about the rant, it's late here, I've been doing a lot of research and writing on this. NO is actually a lot like Hoboken, where I live, in some ways. Corrupt Democratic government (not as much right now as in the recent past, but still), similar architecture, lots of little bistros. We even live in a flood zone.The sights we see are a horror. But the politicizing of this, the bloolust to blame the Feds (and then hand BILLIONS over to incompetent officials) is ALSO a horror, and I don't even know which is worse. We have to get facts out there in front of people. I'm glad to see sites like yours and the Anchoress and others you've mentioned getting out in front of this. The nest thing blogs can do is scour the 'net up and down the dial for the best, most reliable material they can find. Posted by: Mr. Snitch! at September 5, 2005 12:40 AMIf the U.S. was even a tenth of the superpower it claimed to be, they wouldn't even have to be accepting help from the U.N. like beggars in the 1st place. P.S.: The last Republican president I voted for was Ronald Reagan in 1980. I didn't vote in 1984 since I was unsure about his record but didn't like Mondale either. In 1988, I voted for Michael Dukakis despite his take on death penalty. In 1992 and 1996, I voted for Ross Perot. In 2000 and 2004, I voted for Ralph Nader who respects people's rights to privacy like a true conservative but at the same time has genuine respect for fair labor and wages. Here's a perfect article on understanding why today's neocons actually trashed conservatism: http://www.moderateindependent.com/v1i15conservatism.htm Posted by: True Conservative at September 5, 2005 8:00 AMTC - We don't NEED the UN's money, but they NEED to give it, so we ought to accept it. The U.S. has given hundreds of billions of dollars, maybe trillions, for foreign aid, for disaster relief and reuiulding, and in military aide to countless members of the UN over the years. We are often - almost always - the first in with money, supplies and manpower after any large disaster anywhere on the globe. It's nice to see them paying us back a little. Posted by: Bill Hobbs at September 5, 2005 8:16 AMMr. Hobbs, this is why I get fed up with the newer conservatives for being so pathetically inconsistent. Thanks for telling me that if you were offered any bribe, you'd take it like a beggar. Learn some principles and ethics first. After all, there's no point in painting the Democrats are financially corrupt and then doing the same like a sheer hypocrite. Posted by: True Conservative at September 5, 2005 12:52 PMThese officers should be patroling their city.
City to Offer Free Trips to Las Vegas for Officers
NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 4 - A day after two police suicides and the abrupt resignations or desertions of up to 200 police officers, defiant city officials on Sunday began offering five-day vacations - and even trips to Las Vegas - to the police, firefighters and city emergency workers and their families.
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/0905/01edwitt.html
Read more at http://www.philly.com/mld/miamiherald/news/special_packages/5min/12505019.htm Red tape keeping much of military on sidelines The Seattle Times ^ | September 3, 2005 | David Wood
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9177135/ http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/09/03/katrina.unusedgear/index.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/03/AR2005090301680.html
Ah, yes, Terry, if only the Bush administration could 'federalize' more state responsibilites, then America would be safer. And according to the AP and KATC TV, Gov. Blanco declared a state of emergency when Katrina was still off the coast of FLA. Post a comment
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