So you think they've got your back.....

Nancy Pelosi missed the vote on Lerner being brought up on contempt charges.....for a fundraiser!...Now only if she golfed she'd be like the cowh....

mediawatcher wrote:

     Nancy Pelosi missed the vote on Lerner being brought up  on contempt charges.....for a fundraiser!...Now only if she golfed she'd be like the cowh....

And George W Bush was celebrating John McCain's birthday at a party during Katrina.

We can pretty well go on all day if you want to make it a war over which party has the most vacant leaders.

Did you ever visit the Capital Building?  Did you ever go into the chambers of the Senate or the House of Representatives? I have.
There are more tourists looking down on those floors at any given time than there are Representatives or Senators in their chairs.

And to Gov of LA STOPPED the help at the LA borgers during Katrina and would NOT allow the help needed by the people... The Navy and Coast Guard were NOT allowed in LA airspace and forced to stay out of LA waters for a few days by the GOVERNOR, NOT by George Bush.. YES, I saw the pilots and crew members that were turned away.. Many doctors, nurses, and corpsmen that I worked with from NAS and the NAVHOSP were NOT allowed to enter LA until the Governor spread the blame on Bush and the Republicans.. The Governor had 100% of the blame..

Jake92 wrote:

And to Gov of LA STOPPED the help at the LA borgers during Katrina and would NOT allow the help needed by the people...  The Navy and Coast Guard were NOT allowed in LA airspace and forced to stay out of LA waters for a few days by the GOVERNOR, NOT by George Bush..  YES, I saw the pilots and crew members that were turned away..  Many doctors, nurses, and corpsmen that I worked with from NAS and the NAVHOSP were NOT allowed to enter LA until the Governor spread the blame on Bush and the Republicans..  The Governor had 100% of the blame..  

Bush was still partying while the whole thing was going on. There was no excuse for the suffering the people in New Orleans went through in the Superdome after the storm. We've gotten aid to foreign countries faster than we got it to the people in that dome. Bush made the comment later that "who could have predicted the levees would break" when his own advisors had predicted it in a meeting with him a day before. He was not listening.

I know there were a lot of rumors going on as to why the help didn't get into New Orleans, but I'm sure the federal government could have over-ridden a state governor if the situation demanded it, and it did. There were National Guardsmen there who should have provided food and water and assistance to the people in the Superdome but who didn't handle it properly. Bush was absolutely not blameless.

The National Guard is u8nder the STATE PERIOD!!!!!!!!! The stinking Governor refused to let aid from the federal; govt and MANY companies enter the state while the looting and crimes were going on. HE stopped tractor trailors full of water, ice, food, and clothing at the state lines and REFUSED to let them enter the state.. PERIOD!!!!!!!!!!!! After a few days, he opened the borders, airspace, and water to let help in.. It's against the law to send in federal aid UNTIL it's requested by the state.....

Jake92 wrote:

The National Guard is u8nder the STATE  PERIOD!!!!!!!!!  The stinking Governor refused to let aid from the federal; govt and MANY companies enter the state while the looting and crimes were going on.  HE stopped tractor trailors full of water, ice, food, and clothing at the state lines and REFUSED to let them enter the state..  PERIOD!!!!!!!!!!!!  After a few days, he opened the borders, airspace, and water to let help in..  It's against the law to send in federal aid UNTIL it's requested by the state.....

Jake, man, that's just not so.  The POTUS has the right to nationalize the National Guard during times of civil unrest or disobedience. There was looting all over New Orleans during Katrina. The feds used the National Guard to integrate schools in the South when I was a kid and some of the state Governors stood on the steps of the courthouses trying to stop what was happening. But they couldn't. The guard was under federal control and not theirs.
There is nothing the feds can NOT do if they are interested in doing it. Army tanks were used at Waco which is definitely against the law.  If the federal government had cared enough they would have gotten help to those people in the Super Dome. Bush could have nationalized the Guard at any time he wanted to.
But when you're golfing and partying with John McCain, and believing that "Brownie" is doing such a good job, then why should you bother.
And by the way, this is from Snopes.com which is in the business of debunking the kind of rumors you heard so many of during and after Katrina:

http://www.snopes.com/katrina/politics/blanco.asp

It gives somewhat of a different view from what you've been told.  In case no one wants to read it, it makes it clear that the Bush administration was aware of his right to federalize the National Guard   so it's not just always run by the state. He could have done so at any time during the disaster, especially with the looting that was going on in the city.  It also makes it clear that Gov Blanco declared an emergency on August 26 which is before the brunt of the storm and requested help from Washington.

Some of the errors in the timeline were caused by an article in the Washington post blaming Blanco for not declaring a state of Emergency until August 31.  The newspaper  POSTED  a CORRECTION about  the post a few days later when they realized they had posted the wrong date. Of course by then, Fox and some of the other networks were already trying to blame the Louisiana Governor and take any of the blame off Washington.

Rumors are just rumors and are spread every day on some of our national news media. It's shameful but they do it. Then the repeat them so the rumors fly for years afterward. I don't know what your personal observations were but that's the timeline that was verified by a fairly conservative paper like the Washington Post.

My personal observations were watching the corpsmen, drs, nurses, and chaplains from the base who went to help and were turned away at the border!!!!!!!!  I guess they all lied, includiong the chaplains.....  NO, I was not with them but I did see them leave and talked with them the next day..  I also talked with Coast Guard and Navy pilots who were NOT allowed into LA airspace..  Your observatrions are from stinking news papers and snoops which is NOT 100% fact on 100% of what it says..

A few days later, the people I worked with went for a few days and came back with the horror stories that were in the papers and other media about the murders, rapes, and looting, including a few rapes right in the dome..

Jake92 wrote:

My personal observations were watching the corpsmen, drs, nurses, and chaplains from the base who went to help and were turned away at the border!!!!!!!!  I guess they all lied, includiong the chaplains.....  NO, I was not with them but I did see them leave and talked with them the next day..  I also talked with Coast Guard and Navy pilots who were NOT allowed into LA airspace..  Your observatrions are from stinking news papers and snoops which is NOT 100% fact on 100% of what it says..

A few days later, the people I worked with went for a few days and came back with the horror stories that were in the papers and other media about the murders, rapes, and looting, including a few rapes right in the dome..

Well, I wonder if they were turned away because the National Guard was supposed to be handling the situation then? Because that's who usually handles civilian disasters, not the regular military.  I do know that there's a reluctance to allow what they call "martial law" into any place after an emergency because once the regular military takes charge they are sometimes reluctant to let go of their authority.
I wasn't there so I don't know but I have read in other places besides snopes and the Washington Post apologizing for their error in dates that there was a lot of effort to blame one political party or another on what happened in the aftermath of Katrina. A lot of stuff was said that simply was not the truth, down to the dates that a state of emergency was declared to who said what about what.  So everybody was making every political point they could out of the disaster.
But whatever happened, the National Guard can be federalized by the White House at a minutes notice and the guard was already in the state. There's not a thing in the world the Governor could have done to have stopped Washington from taking charge through the use of the Guard and making the situation right.  So my feeling is that if there was a problem, the buck really stopped at the very top. We got help to the people in Haiti after the earthquake faster than it went to New Orleans after Katrina. You obviously disagree with me- guess we'll just have to agree that we disagree on this one.

New Orleans is a small section of the damage in the state, but got 99.9% of the publicity..  There is also a Navy medical clinic in New Orleans which comes under Pensacola Naval Hospital, along with other Navy and Coast Guard commands..  The major Coast Guard command for the gulf coast is New Orleans..  That is where the planes and helos used for search and rescue in the northern gulf are stationed..

Jake92 wrote:

New Orleans is a small section of the damage in the state, but got 99.9% of the publicity..  There is also a Navy medical clinic in New Orleans which comes under Pensacola Naval Hospital, along with other Navy and Coast Guard commands..  The major Coast Guard command for the gulf coast is New Orleans..  That is where the planes and helos used for search and rescue in the northern gulf are stationed..

Oh, I know they were much less damaged than Biloxi. We went over there shortly after the storm and saw the hotels that had been literally blown off their foundations. New Orleans got the big news because it's New Orleans, but Gulfport and Biloxi were devastated. I couldn't believe how bad they looked when all we'd heard was the news about the flooding in N.O. New Orleans didn't get the wind they got in Mississippi.

Gulfport had the Navy bases including the SeaBees right there, but they could only do what the local officials allowed them to do.. The unions control the politicians and the politicians are the leaders of the military.. If the unions don't want the seabees doing the work, the politicians will NOT let them touch it.. The seebeas have to go overseas to do work, mostly considered as training, OR building/repairing runways, roads or buildings in war areas.. It takes them days to do a job that civilian contractors spend months and years on.. Think how long ir would take to do I-110 or Davis Hwy with 1,500 workers going 24 hrs a day!!!!

Jake92 wrote:

My personal observations were watching the corpsmen, drs, nurses, and chaplains from the base who went to help and were turned away at the border!!!!!!!!  I guess they all lied, includiong the chaplains.....  NO, I was not with them but I did see them leave and talked with them the next day..  I also talked with Coast Guard and Navy pilots who were NOT allowed into LA airspace..  Your observatrions are from stinking news papers and snoops which is NOT 100% fact on 100% of what it says..

A few days later, the people I worked with went for a few days and came back with the horror stories that were in the papers and other media about the murders, rapes, and looting, including a few rapes right in the dome..

There were many stories of convoys of vehicles being stopped from entering LA by the then governor...

BUT they still blame it on Bush no matter what....

Jake92 wrote:

BUT they still blame it on Bush no matter what....

You gotta consider the source in most cases that blame Bush for everything...By the way didn't good ole Ray Nagin get indicted recently...His stupidity during the storm was largely unquestioned also...

Of course people forget that warnings were made well in advance and many of the folks who went to the dome could have been out of town if they had listened. Thinning the herd is never a pretty sight.....then again they got free shoes because that's more important than eating.

nochain wrote:

Of course people forget that warnings were made well in advance and many of the folks who went to the dome could have been out of town if they had listened. Thinning the herd is never a pretty sight.....then again they got free shoes because that's more important than eating.

That wasn't looting...robbery...theft.... the people said it was survival!...

Lots of them were shown on TV with survival big screen TV's and other electronics..

Jake92 wrote:

Lots of them were shown on TV with survival big screen TV's and other electronics..  

     HEY you gotta watch something waiting to be rescued and the government check to come...

OOPS, MY mistake, they were just rescuing the TVs and things from the flood waters and protecting them from looters, not stealing them for themselves.. Now I got it straight...

Jake92 wrote:

OOPS, MY mistake, they were just rescuing the TVs and things from the flood waters and protecting them from looters, not stealing them for themselves..  Now I got it straight...

Community Activists!

MW, bike ride at Navy Point 0900 Tues morning.. I hope you can make it..

Jake92 wrote:

MW, bike ride at Navy Point 0900 Tues morning..  I hope you can make it..

Unfortunately.... still one of the shrinking working middle class... Hope the weather cooperates....

One of these years you'll retire and be able to ride bikes with us during the week.. We tried it on Sunday mornings but after the first ride, nobody ever showed up..

nochain wrote:

Of course people forget that warnings were made well in advance and many of the folks who went to the dome could have been out of town if they had listened. Thinning the herd is never a pretty sight.....then again they got free shoes because that's more important than eating.

Well, here's the problem with that. Many, many of the people who both live and work in the French Quarter do not have cars.  That's just a fact of life. They don't own cars because there's nowhere to park them unless they pay about $150-200 a month to a parking garage. They do their shopping in the quarter.  There are grocery stores, pharmacies and pretty much anything they need right there. And if they both live and work in the quarter, they don't truly need to pay for a car and the insurance to drive one. Theft insurance in that area is extremely high.   I'm not talking about looters here, , I'm talking about waiters and waitresses, shopkeepers, vendors, hotel workers, tour guides- in fact, there are about 11,000 people who actually live in the quarter in those boarded up buildings that tourists think are unoccupied. And most do NOT have cars.  There are small scooters, bicycles and other short distance means of transportation behind those locked gates you see. And like I said, they aren't bums- they don't give away even the cheapest of apartments in the quarter and most of them are a lot nicer on the inside than they are from the curb. Once you pay for an apartment, you think twice about paying for a car that you absolutely cannot park in front of your apartment because the streets are full of tourist vehicles.  Evacuating downtown New Orleans is not like evacuating Pensacola.  It would be more like evacuating New York City or San Francisco.

The snide remarks about people in N.O. being too dumb to get out of town have been going around for years, and that's all they are, snide remarks. People didn't go into the superdome unless they had nowhere else to go, but having nowhere else to go does not mean they were out there looting shoes. The looting went on while people were still in the dome.

I just remember the pictures of the busses sitting in 10 feet of water and think that they could have evacuated half the city that didn't have cars.  Poor planning at it's best, IMO.