another bubbleer to talk to, a crony who would undoubtedly do a heck of a job?  Or was this a deliberate stalling tactic for some evil reason?

This is crazy, and horrible.  Cut through red tape to save lives?  Nah, send us the fax of the original paperwork first, and we'll start the requisition process, blah blah blah.  Blanco should scream forever about this.

Angie and Bill: Colorado's bright future!

Airboaters stalled by FEMA
500 Florida airboat pilots have volunteered to rescue Hurricane Katrina victims, transport relief workers and ferry supplies. But they aren't being allowed in. And they're growing frustrated.

A "floatilla of aid" TURNED BACK from New Orleans
A group of approximately 1,000 citizens pulling 500 boats left the Acadiana Mall in Lafayette this morning (Weds.) and headed to New Orleans with a police escort from the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Department. The "flotillia" of trucks pulling boats stretched over five miles. This citizen rescue group was organized by La. State Senator, Gautreaux from Vermilion Parish. The group was comprised of experienced boaters, licensed fishermen and hunters, people who have spent their entire adult life and teenage years on the waterways of Louisiana.

Fearing riots, Guard rejects food airdrops
Authorities are avoiding airdropping provisions into New Orleans - the traditional way of supplying disaster victims - out of fear of sparking riots, a state official said.

Homeland Security won't let Red Cross deliver food
"The Homeland Security Department has requested and continues to request that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans," said Renita Hosler, spokeswoman for the Red Cross.

US won't let Canada help Katrina victims
Planes are ready to load with food and medical supplies and a system called "DART" which can provide fresh water and medical supplies is standing by. Department of Homeland Security as well as other U.S. agencies were contacted by the Canadian government requesting permission to provide help. Despite this contact, Canada has not been allowed to fly supplies and personnel to the areas hit by Katrina.

On BBC: Northern Command was in position, waiting for Presidential orders
We had the USS Baton sailing almost behind the hurricane so that after the hurricane made landfall it's search and rescue helicopters would be available almost immediately. So we had things ready. The only caveat is, we have to wait until the President authorizes us to do so. The laws of the United States say that the military can't just act in this fashion, we have to wait for the President to give us permission.

Confirmation of BBC report: Navy Ship still unused 6 Days after Katrina!
But today the Bataan's hospital facilities, including six operating rooms and beds for 600 patients, are empty. A good share of its 1,200 sailors could also go ashore to help with the relief effort, but they haven't been asked. The Bataan has been in the stricken region the longest of any military unit, but federal authorities have yet to fully utilize the ship.

Daley 'shocked' as feds reject aid
A visibly angry Mayor Daley said the city had offered emergency, medical and technical help to the federal government as early as Sunday to assist people in the areas stricken by Hurricane Katrina, but as of Friday, the only things the feds said they wanted was a single tank truck.

Virgina Team turned away- others efforts wasted
Twenty-two Loudoun County sheriff's deputies and six medical personnel who left Thursday for the New Orleans area returned home early yesterday because of poor communication between officials in Louisiana and Virginia that left the team without required approvals.

FEMA prevents water, fuel delivery- cuts communication lines!
On Meet the Press, the president of Jefferson Parish in New Orleans, Aaron Broussard, said that FEMA turned away aid and cut their communication lines!

Paperwork from DC late to arrive- prevents National Guard from helping
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson offered Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco help from his state's National Guard last Sunday, the day before Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana. Blanco accepted, but paperwork needed to get the troops en route didn't come from Washington until late Thursday.

Guardsmen 'played cards' amid New Orleans chaos: police official
A top New Orleans police officer said that National Guard troops sat around playing cards while people died in the stricken city after Hurricane Katrina.

FEMA Chief Brown caught in a LIE.
In a nationally televised interview Thursday night, he said his agency hadn't known until that day that thousands of storm victims were stranded at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center...

nerdified link

Links to blurbed stories are in link above


one man's conspiracy is another man's business plan
Blog updated as needed

i, for one, am convinced shrubya wanted martial law.  i wrote about it here:

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2005/10/7/43256/2435

it was the trippiest writing experience i've ever had - i knew there was bullshit and knew we had to be wary of an "increased military role" in disasters, but the truth of it dawned on me as i was writing.  a truly bizarre sensation.

Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate - William of Ockham

The New Orleans disaster is actually a "win by appearing to lose" thing for Bush. By being incompetent, he further sours the public on public assistance. Voila, the goals of the likes of Grover Norquist are achieved:  further distrust of the government, shifting of blame to the victims, who are so conviently black and so easily portrayed as shiftless, lazy, criminals, etc.

This is the modus operandi in all but Iraq(which of course is also a huge "success" - though not intended by the administration. The Medicare drug bill is a big fiasco, guaranteed to turn off zillions of citizens to any sort of single-payer medical program. Incompetence helps line the pockets of the FOGF (Friends of George& Family), while sucking money from the poor and middle class. Blame the failures on Democrats. . . control how all of this is portrayed in the media, by owning much of the media.  etc.

Great serious on NOLA, Blksista, I hope you will keep them coming.

blksista, and everyone in comments is admirably filling in the blanks.

I've heard from too many people, that if Blanco had relinquished jurisdiction, and the troops allowed to come under federal control, things could have been a lot worse for the outcome of this tragedy.

So little of what has actually happened in Mississippi, since the storm, has actually made it to the headlines. I know conditions there are horrible, because every now and then a bit leaks out in the press.

Mississippi relinquished control to the feds, and I wonder if this is one reason for the virtual no news coming from that state. That, in combination with, the republican governor.

Some other things I have read about Mississippi:

Demolition of public housing began almost immediately after the storm, even of buildings that could have been repaired, further adding to the homeless problem. We have largely been able, so far, to defend public housing here in New Orleans, from initial attacks post-Katrina, when developers in collusion with Washington tried to use the storm to justify demolition.

Mississippi shut down its free medical clinics, caving in to pressure from private doctors who wanted to resume their businesses. This is tragic and foolhardy. The working poor in that area now have little to no access to medical care.

New Orleans, so far, continues to provide free medical care, post-Katrina, including now mobile medical units, run by Tulane.

Bush destroyed New Orleans- this is a fact.

Another fact is that Bush will tear down others to cover his mistakes. Note a pattern here? This is why the Bushies are trying to find something to pin on Louisiana, to distract from the fact that Katrina's destruction of Nola is Bush's fault: Bush cut the levee funding twice, in spite of years of warnings from all sides. Bush, unlike his predecessors, or even himself, sat by and did nothing when Katrina loomed- refused to put any help in place ahead of time. Bush refused to make sure FEMA was doing what it is supposed to do. Bush refused, oh hell I could go on for days, but the fact is that these hearings are to draw the spotlight off of Bush. And not only that, in the Nola web site blogs, there are Bush trolls posting tirades aginst Blanco & Nagin that coincide with the talking point trash the Repugs are coming up with.

Here are the facts:
June 7, 2001
     Bush signed his massive $1.3 trillion income tax cut into law--a tax cut that severely depleted the government of revenues it needed to address critical priorities. Bush's first budget introduced in February 2001 proposed more than half a billion dollars worth of cuts to the Army Corps of Engineers for the 2002 fiscal year.
February 2, 2004
     White House on February 2 released a budget with another massive cut to infrastructure and public works projects--this time to the tune of $460 million. As the Denver Post later reported, "the Southeast Louisiana Flood Control project sought $100 million in U.S. aid to strengthen the levees holding back the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain, but the Bush administration offered a paltry $16.5 million." The Chicago Tribune noted that the Army Corps of Engineers had also requested $27 million to pay for hurricane protection upgrades around Lake Pontchartrain--but the White House pared that back to $3.9 million. Gaps in levees around Lake Pontchartrain, which were supposed to be filled by 2004, would not be filled because of budget shortfalls. Corps officials told the Times-Picayune

June 23-37, 2001
      Times-Picayune publishes series on effects on hurricane hitting S.Louisiana

HURRICANE FRANCES HITS FLORIDA: "Imagine if, in advance of Hurricane Katrina, thousands of trucks had been waiting with water and ice and medicine and other supplies. Imagine if 4,000 National Guardsmen and an equal number of emergency aid workers from around the country had been moved into place, and five million meals had been ready to serve. Imagine if scores of mobile satellite-communications stations had been prepared to move in instantly, ensuring that rescuers could talk to one another. Imagine if all this had been managed by a federal-and-state task force that not only directed the government response but also helped coordinate the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and other outside groups.
     This requires no imagination: it is exactly what the Bush administration did a year ago when Florida braced for Hurricane Frances.

President Nixon -- August 1969 when Cat-5 Hurricane Camille hit roughly the same area as Katrina, President Nixon had already readied the National Guard and ordered all Gulf rescue vessels and equipment from Tampa and Houston to follow the Hurricane in.

President Clinton -- September 1999, Hurricane Floyd -- Cat-3, was bearing down on the Carolinas and Virginia. President Clinton was in Christchurch, New Zealand - meeting with President Jiang of China. He made the proclamation that only Presidents can make and declared the areas affected by Floyd "Federal Disaster Areas" so the National Guard and Military can begin to mobilize.

President Bush (41) -- August 1992 -- was in the midst of a campaign for re-election. Yet, he cut off his campaigning the day before and went to Washington where he martialed the largest military operation on US soil in history. He sent in 7,000 National Guard and 22,000 regular military personnel, and all the gear to begin the clean up within hours after Andrew passed through Florida.

George Bush (43) -- August 2005 -- Cat-5 Hurricane Katrina bears down on New Orleans and the Mississippi gulf. Both states are down nearly 8,000 National Guard troops because they are in Iraq -- with most of the rescue gear needed.
    Bush is on vacation. The day before Katrina makes landfall, Bush rides his bike for two hours. The day Katrina hits, he goes to John McCain's birthday party, and lies to old people about the multi-billion-dollar pharmaceutical company welfare boondoggle.
     People are dying, the largest port of entry in the United States (and fifth largest in the World) is under attack. Troops and supplies are desperately needed. The levees are cracking and the emergency 1-1/2 ton sandbags are ready, but there aren't enough helicopters or pilots to set them before the levees fail. The mayor of New Orleans begs for Federal coordination, but there is none, and the sandbagging never gets done. Bush goes to San Diego, to play guitar with a country singer and lie to the military about how Iraq is just exactly like WWII. The levees give way, filling New Orleans with water, sewage, oil and chemicals. Ten percent of all US exports, and 50% of all agricultural exports ordinarily go through this port. It is totally destroyed.  Bush decides he'll end his vacation a couple of days early -- BECAUSE HE HAS TICKETS TO A PADRES GAME.