20050904
September is National Preparedness Month!
http://www.ready.gov/npm/index.htm
So THAT'S where all those tax dollars went! We got us a web page telling us to take care of ourselves!
Senator Threatens President Bush
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7000022527
It is a felony to threaten the President of The United States with violence.
Bush stopped being the legal President the day he lied to start a war.
The Boy Emperor's Waterloo at Lake New Orleans
The dark things from sunken regions that are floating to the water's surface, the corpses bobbing in the polluted waters of Lake New Orleans, are not the only things coming to the surface in this appalling tragedy. The bloated corruptions of America’s fascist administration are also coming into view and stinking in the hot sun of the devastated landscape.
The president from Mars
Last week, with the poor stranded on rooftops, then huddled, hungry and abandoned inside a leaking stadium and a sweltering convention center, George the Lesser watched in seeming amazement when they ran riot. First came looting born of hunger and thirst when a federal government adept at moving armies to a foreign desert for a fraudulent war proved incapable of shipping food and medicine across state lines for a flooded city.
FEMA Outsourced N.O. Disaster Plans To Politcal Cronies/Donors
FEMA privatized hurricane disaster recovery planning for New Orleans and Southeastern Louisiana. The firms that received the contract are big GOP contributors.
IS THIS THE REASON US TAX DOLLARS WERE AVAILABLE TO BUILD A WALL AROUND ISRAEL BUT NOT AROUND NEW ORLEANS?
Hurricane relief may cut into U.S. pullout aid for Israel
GOOD! We should not have to pay Israelis to give back lands they stole illegally in the first place. We should not have to pay for a wall for Israel whioe walls needed by Louisiana went unrepaired for so many years. America's taxes for AMERICANS!
Criticism of Bush mounts as more than 10,000 feared dead
Bush says US can handle Iraq, Katrina
Bush is a dictator. He lies to start a war and there is no way within the current system to make him stop.
Troops begin combat operations in New Orleans
While some fight the insurgency in the city, other carry on with rescue and evacuation operations.
The Military Is Frisking Little Children Before Rescuing Them
Yes, everyone standing politely by and waiting to be rescued needs to be treated like a criminal and frisked. Is there one example of someone asking to be rescued who then turned on their rescuers? No. Is there anyone who thinks a little 10 year old boy hungry and crying IS A SECURITY RISK?
Met by Despair, Not Violence
But when they arrived, they did not find marauding mobs. They did not come under fire. They found people who had lost everything in the storm and, since then, their dignity.
Bush Suspends Posse Comitatus, Active Military Pour into New Orleans
Either Bush is using Katrina as a dodge or he's ignorant of the law. Posse Comitatus states that military cannot be used for domestic law enforcement, but a rescue operation isn't enforcing the law and there has never been a ban on US military assisting in rescues inside the US. What is Bush really up to?
Provacateur forces in New Orleans? The case builds
This sounds really way out there, but the suggestion is not without historical precedent. Some historians believe Nero himself set the fire that burned Rome in order to clear the land for an ambitious rebuilding project. The fire got out of control, and Nero framed the Christians for it to save his own skin.
National Guard not allowing aid into the city
This looks like things in New Orleans are hideously bad, and Bush is afraid photographs of piled up dead bodies similar to those that followed the tsunami may get out. With the nation aware of the Bush funding cuts for flood control in Louisiana (even the checkout girl at Safeway was talking about that), photos of the victims could trigger an outright revolt. Remember the hundreds of photos from people on the ground after the Tsunami? Seen any equivilent photos escape from New Orleans yet? There are reports of cameras being confiscated and destroyed by the National Guard. Why? Why take time away from helping the victims of the disaster to prevent photographs? Because the photos of the dead will be in political advertisements in 2006 and 2008. Who cares how many more die; Bush has to protect the party! Keep those people with their cameras out of the city!
By cutting the flood control funds to pay for his illegal war, Bush has done more damage to the United States than any terrorist could ever hope to have accomplished.
Churchgoers seen as supporting Iraq war?
http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=107760
"We don't believe Bush deceived us or lied to us. He did what he had to do. He thought it was the best thing to do in response to 9/11."
Bush gives new ‘Oil’ reason for Iraq war
http://newsfromrussia.com/usa/2005/08/31/62043.html
George WMD Bush, facing waning support for his Iraq policy, appealed on Tuesday to Americans not to waver because of the rising death toll and again rejected protesters' calls for a troop withdrawal. With Americans already worried about sharply rising oil prices, Bush said a pull-out would allow al Qaeda to take hold of Iraq's oil fields to fund new attacks, as well as damage America's credibility. With nearly 1,900 U.S. troops killed in Iraq and anti-war protesters trailing him from his secluded Texas ranch to California, Bush has seen his job approval ratings plummet to the lowest levels of his presidency.
Thanks to Guards, Iraq Oil Pipeline Is Up and Running, On and Off
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/03/international/middleeast/03oil.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1125853862-KKgB3ea7NM1comf7pH+ONg
September 2, 2005 - Saboteurs shut down Iraqi crude oil exports to Turkey for virtually all of the past year, but the oil is flowing again after Iraq's government put in place elaborate new security measures and decided to move its product in what is essentially a clandestine operation.
Iraq oil exports disrupted by blast!!!
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/iraq-oil-exports-disrupted-by-blast/2005/09/03/1125302782589.html
September 3, 2005 - 10:00PM - All exports of Iraq's Kirkuk crude oil through a major pipeline to Ceyhan on Turkey's Mediterranean coast were stopped on Saturday after a bomb blast set the pipeline on fire, an oil ministry source said.
Saboteurs hit Iranian oil pipelines
http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=35116&NewsKind=Current%20Affairs
Khuzestan is the centre of Iran's oil production, but has also been the scene of recent ethnic troubles that authorities have blamed on Arab separatists, US-based Iranian exile groups and loyalists of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein?
Rapes, killings hit Katrina refugees in New Orleans
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2005-09-03T202355Z_01_FOR373303_RTRIDST_0_USREPORT-WEATHER-KATRINA-HELPLESS-DC.XML
People left homeless by Hurricane Katrina told horrific stories of rape, murder and trigger happy U.S. Troops in two New Orleans centers that were set up as shelters but became places of violence and terror.
National Guardsmen 'played cards' amid New Orleans chaos: police official
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050903/ts_alt_afp/usweatherpolice_050903215815
The National Guard commander, Lieutenant General Steven Blum, said the reservist force was slow to move troops into New Orleans because it did not anticipate the collapse of the city's police force.
Reeling from the chaos of this overwhelmed city, at least 200 New Orleans police officers have walked away from their jobs and two have committed suicide, police officials said on Saturday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/national/nationalspecial/04police.html?ei=5090&en=8bf8550c348bbc33&ex=1283486400&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print
Some officers told their superiors they were leaving, police officials said. Others worked for a while and then stopped showing up. Still others, for reasons not always clear, never made it in after the storm.
Political storm blows in Washington
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9176113/
House members voice anger and call for bringing troops home
As White House Anxiety Grows, Bush Tries to Quell Political Crisis
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/national/nationalspecial/04bush.html?ei=5090&en=92e1db22850b28f9&ex=1283486400&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print
"Given the racial component of this, and given the current political environment, there certainly seems to be a high level of risk to this story," said a Republican Party official, who, citing the concern among party officials about the criticism, would only discuss the question on the condition of not being identified.
Camille Paglia: Hurricane Katrina has demolished this administration's mask of confidence
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article309925.ece
It can be detected, for example, in the fixed optimism of the Bush administration that Western-style constitutional democracy can be planted virtually overnight in the Mideast. What is highly surprising now is the disintegration of the administration's mask of competence and confidence, as New Orleans sinks day by day into squalor and savagery, a shocking panorama of unrelieved human suffering.
Katrina's Assault on Washington
If the Homeland Security Department was so ill prepared for a natural disaster that everyone knew was coming, how is it equipped to handle other kinds of crises? Has the war in Iraq drained the nation of resources that it needs for things like flood prevention? Is the National Guard ready to handle a disaster that might be even worse, like a biological or nuclear attack? One thing is certain: if President Bush and his Republican Congressional leaders want to deal responsibly with a historic disaster of this scale, they must finally try the path of honestly shared national sacrifice. If they respond by passing a few emergency measures and then falling back on their plans to enact more tax cuts, America will have to confront the fact that it is stuck with leaders who neither know, nor care, how to lead.
The pre-Katrina plan for this Congressional season was to enact more upper-bracket tax cuts for the least needy, while cutting into the safety-net programs for sick and impoverished Americans. These are the very entitlement programs most needed by the sudden underclass of hundreds of thousands of hurricane refugees cast adrift like Dustbowl Okies. Will Congress dare to go forward with these retrogressive plans in the face of the suffering from Katrina? Its woeful track record suggests that, shockingly, the answer may be yes. G.O.P. leaders are set to mandate billions in Medicaid and antipoverty cuts this month, while the Senate is poised to try again to repeal the estate tax, a monumental folly that will deprive the deficit-ridden government of an estimated $750 billion in vital revenue in the first decade. The theory is that over the long run, the missing money will "starve the beast" and force Washington to make huge cuts in federal programs. The public has never bought this, but as long as the economy held up, it was willing to ignore the long-term implications. That can't be the case now, when those implications are sitting in filthy refugee centers, when the streets of New Orleans are under water and when the nation must take care of hundreds of thousands of homeless people. Yet President Bush has still managed to repeat his no-taxes mantra.
Senator Mary Landrieu, the Louisiana Democrat, is now fighting for every available dollar to restore her state. Republicans had been wooing Ms. Landrieu as a possible supporter of the estate tax repeal. Now, we presume, she has higher priorities. Washington's inspiration must now be the individual rescuers in New Orleans, who have labored so bravely and selflessly, as well as the charitable deeds of local and state governments. Houston's offer of shelter at the Astrodome has put self-regarding national politicians to shame. Congress and the president had better get the message: an extraordinary time is upon the nation. The annihilation in New Orleans is an irrefutable sign that the national tax-cut party is over. So is the idea that American voters cannot be required to accept sacrifice or inconvenience, no matter how great the crisis. This country is better than that.
The line NBC stopped us from hearing on the West Coast: "George Bush doesn't care about black people."The puzzling thing is why NBC axed that, but allowed another provocation, potentially more disturbing, to stay in: "We already realized a lot of the people that could help are at war right now, fighting another way, and they've given them permission to go down and shoot us."West was apparently referring to the National Guard troops who were sent to New Orleans to help the flood victims and stop the looting.
The Show Didn't Benefit by Censors
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-critic4sep04,0,6609184.story?coll=la-home-headlines
AS we enter the celebrity telethon phase of the Katrina tragedy, NBC's "A Concert for Hurricane Relief" stands as a blueprint for its own kind of institutional failure.By censoring Grammy-winning rapper Kanye West's remarks critical of President Bush during its West Coast feed of the program Friday night, the network violated the most moving and essential moment in an otherwise sterile, self-serving corporate broadcast.
Fox Anchor: NBC Should Have Bleeped Out West
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/09/03/fox-race/
STEVE DOOCY: It understores the fact that NBC should have had a producer with a finger on the button and as soon as someone goes off the copy to go ahead and delete it.
Ten billion dollars are about to pass into the sticky hands of politicians in the No. 1 and No. 3 most corrupt states in America. Worried about looting? You ain't seen nothing yet.
The Bursting Point
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/opinion/04brooks.html?ei=5090&en=37eeb8918dbb6e2e&ex=1283486400&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print
Katrina means that the political culture, already sour and bloody-minded in many quarters, will shift. There will be a reaction. There will be more impatience for something new. There is going to be some sort of big bang as people respond to the cumulative blows of bad events and try to fundamentally change the way things are. Reaganite conservatism was the response to the pessimism and feebleness of the 1970's. Maybe this time there will be a progressive resurgence. Maybe we are entering an age of hardheaded law and order. (Rudy Giuliani, an unlikely G.O.P. nominee a few months ago, could now win in a walk.) Maybe there will be call for McCainist patriotism and nonpartisan independence. All we can be sure of is that the political culture is about to undergo some big change. We're not really at a tipping point as much as a bursting point. People are mad as hell, unwilling to take it anymore.
The president of Jefferson Parish in New Orleans, Aaron Broussard: "We have been abandoned by our own country. Hurricane Katrina will go down in history as one of the worst storms ever to hit an American coast. But the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina will go down as one of the worst abandonments of Americans on American soil ever in U.S. history. ... Whoever is at the top of this totem pole, that totem pole needs to be chainsawed off and we've got to start with some new leadership."
Parish president on FEMA's response: "The guy who runs this building I'm in, Emergency Management, he's responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, "Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?" and he said, "Yeah, Mama, somebody's coming to get you. Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. [Broussard begins sobbing.] Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on Friday...and she drowned Friday night! She drowned Friday night! [Sobbing] Nobody's coming to get us! Nobody's coming to get us."
A Time to Give to Those in Need and Stand Up Against an Immoral and Incompetent White House. Let the Truth Shine Through and Return America To Its Revolutionary Roots of Accountability to its Citizens. ¶ 4.9.05
http://www.ready.gov/npm/index.htm
So THAT'S where all those tax dollars went! We got us a web page telling us to take care of ourselves!
Senator Threatens President Bush
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7000022527
It is a felony to threaten the President of The United States with violence.
Bush stopped being the legal President the day he lied to start a war.
The Boy Emperor's Waterloo at Lake New Orleans
The dark things from sunken regions that are floating to the water's surface, the corpses bobbing in the polluted waters of Lake New Orleans, are not the only things coming to the surface in this appalling tragedy. The bloated corruptions of America’s fascist administration are also coming into view and stinking in the hot sun of the devastated landscape.
The president from Mars
Last week, with the poor stranded on rooftops, then huddled, hungry and abandoned inside a leaking stadium and a sweltering convention center, George the Lesser watched in seeming amazement when they ran riot. First came looting born of hunger and thirst when a federal government adept at moving armies to a foreign desert for a fraudulent war proved incapable of shipping food and medicine across state lines for a flooded city.
FEMA Outsourced N.O. Disaster Plans To Politcal Cronies/Donors
FEMA privatized hurricane disaster recovery planning for New Orleans and Southeastern Louisiana. The firms that received the contract are big GOP contributors.
IS THIS THE REASON US TAX DOLLARS WERE AVAILABLE TO BUILD A WALL AROUND ISRAEL BUT NOT AROUND NEW ORLEANS?
Hurricane relief may cut into U.S. pullout aid for Israel
GOOD! We should not have to pay Israelis to give back lands they stole illegally in the first place. We should not have to pay for a wall for Israel whioe walls needed by Louisiana went unrepaired for so many years. America's taxes for AMERICANS!
Criticism of Bush mounts as more than 10,000 feared dead
Bush says US can handle Iraq, Katrina
Bush is a dictator. He lies to start a war and there is no way within the current system to make him stop.
Troops begin combat operations in New Orleans
While some fight the insurgency in the city, other carry on with rescue and evacuation operations.
The Military Is Frisking Little Children Before Rescuing Them
Yes, everyone standing politely by and waiting to be rescued needs to be treated like a criminal and frisked. Is there one example of someone asking to be rescued who then turned on their rescuers? No. Is there anyone who thinks a little 10 year old boy hungry and crying IS A SECURITY RISK?
Met by Despair, Not Violence
But when they arrived, they did not find marauding mobs. They did not come under fire. They found people who had lost everything in the storm and, since then, their dignity.
Bush Suspends Posse Comitatus, Active Military Pour into New Orleans
Either Bush is using Katrina as a dodge or he's ignorant of the law. Posse Comitatus states that military cannot be used for domestic law enforcement, but a rescue operation isn't enforcing the law and there has never been a ban on US military assisting in rescues inside the US. What is Bush really up to?
Provacateur forces in New Orleans? The case builds
This sounds really way out there, but the suggestion is not without historical precedent. Some historians believe Nero himself set the fire that burned Rome in order to clear the land for an ambitious rebuilding project. The fire got out of control, and Nero framed the Christians for it to save his own skin.
National Guard not allowing aid into the city
This looks like things in New Orleans are hideously bad, and Bush is afraid photographs of piled up dead bodies similar to those that followed the tsunami may get out. With the nation aware of the Bush funding cuts for flood control in Louisiana (even the checkout girl at Safeway was talking about that), photos of the victims could trigger an outright revolt. Remember the hundreds of photos from people on the ground after the Tsunami? Seen any equivilent photos escape from New Orleans yet? There are reports of cameras being confiscated and destroyed by the National Guard. Why? Why take time away from helping the victims of the disaster to prevent photographs? Because the photos of the dead will be in political advertisements in 2006 and 2008. Who cares how many more die; Bush has to protect the party! Keep those people with their cameras out of the city!
By cutting the flood control funds to pay for his illegal war, Bush has done more damage to the United States than any terrorist could ever hope to have accomplished.
Churchgoers seen as supporting Iraq war?
http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=107760
"We don't believe Bush deceived us or lied to us. He did what he had to do. He thought it was the best thing to do in response to 9/11."
Bush gives new ‘Oil’ reason for Iraq war
http://newsfromrussia.com/usa/2005/08/31/62043.html
George WMD Bush, facing waning support for his Iraq policy, appealed on Tuesday to Americans not to waver because of the rising death toll and again rejected protesters' calls for a troop withdrawal. With Americans already worried about sharply rising oil prices, Bush said a pull-out would allow al Qaeda to take hold of Iraq's oil fields to fund new attacks, as well as damage America's credibility. With nearly 1,900 U.S. troops killed in Iraq and anti-war protesters trailing him from his secluded Texas ranch to California, Bush has seen his job approval ratings plummet to the lowest levels of his presidency.
Thanks to Guards, Iraq Oil Pipeline Is Up and Running, On and Off
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/03/international/middleeast/03oil.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1125853862-KKgB3ea7NM1comf7pH+ONg
September 2, 2005 - Saboteurs shut down Iraqi crude oil exports to Turkey for virtually all of the past year, but the oil is flowing again after Iraq's government put in place elaborate new security measures and decided to move its product in what is essentially a clandestine operation.
Iraq oil exports disrupted by blast!!!
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/iraq-oil-exports-disrupted-by-blast/2005/09/03/1125302782589.html
September 3, 2005 - 10:00PM - All exports of Iraq's Kirkuk crude oil through a major pipeline to Ceyhan on Turkey's Mediterranean coast were stopped on Saturday after a bomb blast set the pipeline on fire, an oil ministry source said.
Saboteurs hit Iranian oil pipelines
http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=35116&NewsKind=Current%20Affairs
Khuzestan is the centre of Iran's oil production, but has also been the scene of recent ethnic troubles that authorities have blamed on Arab separatists, US-based Iranian exile groups and loyalists of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein?
Rapes, killings hit Katrina refugees in New Orleans
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2005-09-03T202355Z_01_FOR373303_RTRIDST_0_USREPORT-WEATHER-KATRINA-HELPLESS-DC.XML
People left homeless by Hurricane Katrina told horrific stories of rape, murder and trigger happy U.S. Troops in two New Orleans centers that were set up as shelters but became places of violence and terror.
National Guardsmen 'played cards' amid New Orleans chaos: police official
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050903/ts_alt_afp/usweatherpolice_050903215815
The National Guard commander, Lieutenant General Steven Blum, said the reservist force was slow to move troops into New Orleans because it did not anticipate the collapse of the city's police force.
Reeling from the chaos of this overwhelmed city, at least 200 New Orleans police officers have walked away from their jobs and two have committed suicide, police officials said on Saturday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/national/nationalspecial/04police.html?ei=5090&en=8bf8550c348bbc33&ex=1283486400&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print
Some officers told their superiors they were leaving, police officials said. Others worked for a while and then stopped showing up. Still others, for reasons not always clear, never made it in after the storm.
Political storm blows in Washington
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9176113/
House members voice anger and call for bringing troops home
As White House Anxiety Grows, Bush Tries to Quell Political Crisis
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/national/nationalspecial/04bush.html?ei=5090&en=92e1db22850b28f9&ex=1283486400&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print
"Given the racial component of this, and given the current political environment, there certainly seems to be a high level of risk to this story," said a Republican Party official, who, citing the concern among party officials about the criticism, would only discuss the question on the condition of not being identified.
Camille Paglia: Hurricane Katrina has demolished this administration's mask of confidence
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article309925.ece
It can be detected, for example, in the fixed optimism of the Bush administration that Western-style constitutional democracy can be planted virtually overnight in the Mideast. What is highly surprising now is the disintegration of the administration's mask of competence and confidence, as New Orleans sinks day by day into squalor and savagery, a shocking panorama of unrelieved human suffering.
Katrina's Assault on Washington
If the Homeland Security Department was so ill prepared for a natural disaster that everyone knew was coming, how is it equipped to handle other kinds of crises? Has the war in Iraq drained the nation of resources that it needs for things like flood prevention? Is the National Guard ready to handle a disaster that might be even worse, like a biological or nuclear attack? One thing is certain: if President Bush and his Republican Congressional leaders want to deal responsibly with a historic disaster of this scale, they must finally try the path of honestly shared national sacrifice. If they respond by passing a few emergency measures and then falling back on their plans to enact more tax cuts, America will have to confront the fact that it is stuck with leaders who neither know, nor care, how to lead.
The pre-Katrina plan for this Congressional season was to enact more upper-bracket tax cuts for the least needy, while cutting into the safety-net programs for sick and impoverished Americans. These are the very entitlement programs most needed by the sudden underclass of hundreds of thousands of hurricane refugees cast adrift like Dustbowl Okies. Will Congress dare to go forward with these retrogressive plans in the face of the suffering from Katrina? Its woeful track record suggests that, shockingly, the answer may be yes. G.O.P. leaders are set to mandate billions in Medicaid and antipoverty cuts this month, while the Senate is poised to try again to repeal the estate tax, a monumental folly that will deprive the deficit-ridden government of an estimated $750 billion in vital revenue in the first decade. The theory is that over the long run, the missing money will "starve the beast" and force Washington to make huge cuts in federal programs. The public has never bought this, but as long as the economy held up, it was willing to ignore the long-term implications. That can't be the case now, when those implications are sitting in filthy refugee centers, when the streets of New Orleans are under water and when the nation must take care of hundreds of thousands of homeless people. Yet President Bush has still managed to repeat his no-taxes mantra.
Senator Mary Landrieu, the Louisiana Democrat, is now fighting for every available dollar to restore her state. Republicans had been wooing Ms. Landrieu as a possible supporter of the estate tax repeal. Now, we presume, she has higher priorities. Washington's inspiration must now be the individual rescuers in New Orleans, who have labored so bravely and selflessly, as well as the charitable deeds of local and state governments. Houston's offer of shelter at the Astrodome has put self-regarding national politicians to shame. Congress and the president had better get the message: an extraordinary time is upon the nation. The annihilation in New Orleans is an irrefutable sign that the national tax-cut party is over. So is the idea that American voters cannot be required to accept sacrifice or inconvenience, no matter how great the crisis. This country is better than that.
The line NBC stopped us from hearing on the West Coast: "George Bush doesn't care about black people."The puzzling thing is why NBC axed that, but allowed another provocation, potentially more disturbing, to stay in: "We already realized a lot of the people that could help are at war right now, fighting another way, and they've given them permission to go down and shoot us."West was apparently referring to the National Guard troops who were sent to New Orleans to help the flood victims and stop the looting.
The Show Didn't Benefit by Censors
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-critic4sep04,0,6609184.story?coll=la-home-headlines
AS we enter the celebrity telethon phase of the Katrina tragedy, NBC's "A Concert for Hurricane Relief" stands as a blueprint for its own kind of institutional failure.By censoring Grammy-winning rapper Kanye West's remarks critical of President Bush during its West Coast feed of the program Friday night, the network violated the most moving and essential moment in an otherwise sterile, self-serving corporate broadcast.
Fox Anchor: NBC Should Have Bleeped Out West
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/09/03/fox-race/
STEVE DOOCY: It understores the fact that NBC should have had a producer with a finger on the button and as soon as someone goes off the copy to go ahead and delete it.
Ten billion dollars are about to pass into the sticky hands of politicians in the No. 1 and No. 3 most corrupt states in America. Worried about looting? You ain't seen nothing yet.
The Bursting Point
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/opinion/04brooks.html?ei=5090&en=37eeb8918dbb6e2e&ex=1283486400&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print
Katrina means that the political culture, already sour and bloody-minded in many quarters, will shift. There will be a reaction. There will be more impatience for something new. There is going to be some sort of big bang as people respond to the cumulative blows of bad events and try to fundamentally change the way things are. Reaganite conservatism was the response to the pessimism and feebleness of the 1970's. Maybe this time there will be a progressive resurgence. Maybe we are entering an age of hardheaded law and order. (Rudy Giuliani, an unlikely G.O.P. nominee a few months ago, could now win in a walk.) Maybe there will be call for McCainist patriotism and nonpartisan independence. All we can be sure of is that the political culture is about to undergo some big change. We're not really at a tipping point as much as a bursting point. People are mad as hell, unwilling to take it anymore.
The president of Jefferson Parish in New Orleans, Aaron Broussard: "We have been abandoned by our own country. Hurricane Katrina will go down in history as one of the worst storms ever to hit an American coast. But the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina will go down as one of the worst abandonments of Americans on American soil ever in U.S. history. ... Whoever is at the top of this totem pole, that totem pole needs to be chainsawed off and we've got to start with some new leadership."
Parish president on FEMA's response: "The guy who runs this building I'm in, Emergency Management, he's responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, "Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?" and he said, "Yeah, Mama, somebody's coming to get you. Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. [Broussard begins sobbing.] Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on Friday...and she drowned Friday night! She drowned Friday night! [Sobbing] Nobody's coming to get us! Nobody's coming to get us."
A Time to Give to Those in Need and Stand Up Against an Immoral and Incompetent White House. Let the Truth Shine Through and Return America To Its Revolutionary Roots of Accountability to its Citizens. ¶ 4.9.05
