www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_09_04.php#006430
Petersburg Times , on Sunday the 28th, Mayfield arranged a video conference call with Pre sident Bush himself at the Crawford Ranch during which he explained the hurricane's force and destructive potential. And it wo uld seem to leave little question that the president himself knew the cr itical information from Mayfield before Katrina even made landfall. Said Mayfield, according to the Times: "I just wanted to be able to go to sleep that night knowing that I did all I could do."
Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, said the administration is "getting a bad ra p" for the emergency response. "This is the largest disaster in the history of the United States, over an area twice the size of Europe," Stevens said. "People have to unders tand this is a big, big problem."
Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, sought the approval from Homeland Security Secretary Mike Chertoff roughly five hours after Katrina made landfall o n Aug. Brown said that among duties of these employees was to "conve y a positive image" about the government's response for victims. Before then, FEMA had positioned smaller rescue and communications teams across the Gulf Coast. But officials acknowledged Tuesday the first department -wide appeal for help came only as the storm raged."
Disaster Mortuary Operational Re sponse Team), which is a volunteer wing of the Department of Homeland Se curity called in to set up morgues and process bodies in major domestic disasters. Bucker tells the pa per that "DMort is telling us to expect up to 40,000 bodies." And he goe s on to say that that number does not "include the number of disinterred remains that have been displaced from ...
article from t oday's Salt Lake Tribune which tells the story of about a thousand firef ighters from around the country who volunteered Advertisement to serve in the Katrina devastation areas. But when they arrived in Atl anta to be shipped out to various disaster zones in the region, they fou nd out that they were going to be used as FEMA community relations speci alists. And they were to spend a day in Atlanta getting training on comm unity relations, sexual harassment awareness, et al. This of course whil e life and death situations were still the order of the day along a whol e stretch of the Gulf Coast. It's an article you've really got a to read to appreciate the full measur e of folly and surreality. But the graf at the end of the piece really puts everything in perspectiv e, and gives some sense what the Bush administration really has in mind when it talks about a crisis. The paper reports that one team finally wa s sent to the region ... As specific orders began arriving to the firefighters in Atlanta, a team of 50 Monday morning quickly was ushered onto a flight headed for Loui siana. The crew's first assignment: to stand beside President Bush as h e tours devastated areas.
received electronic bri efings on Katrina's likely destructive potential before the storm hit. A knowledgable source suggests asking who else listened in on those pre-l andfall briefings.
Buffeted by criticism over the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, Pr esident Bush said Tuesday he will oversee an investigation into what we nt wrong and why in part to be sure the country could withstand more st orms or attack. Bush also announced he is sending Vice President Dick Cheney to the Gulf Coast region on Thursday to help determine whether the government is d oing all that it can. "Bureaucracy is not going to stand in the way of getting the job done fo r the people," the president said after a meeting at the White House wi th his Cabinet on storm recovery efforts. "What I intend to do is lead an investigation to find out what went righ t and what went wrong," Bush said. We want to make sure we can respond properly if there is a WMD (weapo ns of mass destruction) attack or another major storm."
Lot of talk going around this town this morning that Pres Bush and the h ead of the National Weather Service both called Mayor Nagin in advance of the storm to tell him to get off his butt and call in the Guard. I dont know where this came from, havent seen it m yself.
TPM Reader JS: "Conservative colleague of mine chortling this morning: sa id he heard on Imus this AM that the reason the poor didn't evacuate fro m New Orleans before the storm is because they were waiting for Advertisement their welfare checks. TPM: "I think this may be an extremely disfigured version of some factual information. people on public assistance get their checks on the first of the month. so there is a lot of anecdotal information that quite a few people who live from check to check had no cash on hand by the end of the month and thus had no money to leave town .
Vitter, speaking to reporters at the eme rgency response center in Baton Rouge, also said he gave the federal gov ernment a grade 'F' for its response to the disaster so far."
Anderson Cooper: Senator, on Friday, you gave the federal government an "F" for their efforts. DAVID VITTER , LOUISIANA: Yeah, first of all, Friday, I gave all of the organized government relief effort an "F," state and federal. I think it's turned a corner, in fact, it began to turn later that day, Friday, when it essentially became an unprecedented military operation, not only National Guard, but major active duty military.
Joe Allbaugh might eve n be convinced to bring his influence-peddling operation stateside again . In fact, if you were Advertisement ever planning to become a Republican or give money to Republicans, by a ll means, do it now. Because all of the GOP patronage and pay-for-play o peration that we've seen up till this point was probably just a prelude to what's coming.
Michael Brown got his job as a political patronage posi tion, with no relevant experience and the last item on his resume gettin g fired from a job as a manager of horse shows.
cau ght giving out FEMA money as political pork with an eye to the 2004 elec tions. But that shouldn't surprise since people who get hired as part of patronage operations do their jobs as part of the patronage operation.
article from Tuesday's Times about the boom town at mosphere in Houston as people and business from New Orleans flood into t he city ... Oil services companies based here are racing to carry out repairs to dam aged offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico; the promise of plenty of work to do sent shares in two large companies, Halliburton and Baker H ughes, soaring to 52-week highs last week. Some of this is just the grim irony of politics and geography. Houston is a nearby port town deep into the oil business. We have a thoroughly politicized FEMA, en cased within an administration that ran the Iraqi reconstruction in such a way that they managed to give graft and cronyism a bad name. And did we mention the import ant Senate race next year in Florida? Of course, if you want to get down into the minutiae, remember it was Joe Allbaugh who got his college buddy Michael Brown the patronage job at F EMA; when Allbaugh got into the Iraqi contracts racket he handed FEMA ov er to Brown.
Right, Haley Barbour, w ho's now Governor of Mississippi. Like I said, I bet we see Allbaugh pretty soon deciding that his services are required closer to home. The White House is already laying the groundwork for centralizing all aut hority over contracting within the executive branch, which for all inten ts and purposes means the White House. Like a friend of mine said earlier this evening, it really is going to be the biggest slush fund of all time.
took over from the esteemed Michael Brown as General Counsel of FEMA when Brown ascended from General Counsel to Deputy Director. Wallace was General Counsel at FEMA as the agency was being transitioned into the Department of Homeland Security in 2002 and 2003.
noted, the Washington Post got burned today by a "senior Bush offi cial" who told them that Gov. Blanco of Louisiana had never declared a s tate of emergency in the site -- a claim the Post printed as fact. Yet t he claim was demonstrably false and by late afternoon the Post had been compelled to print a correction.
same false claim -- and though thei r ...
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