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mithridates

Joined: 03 Mar 2003 Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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Posted: Thu Sep 08, 2005 1:37 pm Post subject: Re: ... |
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Nowhere Man wrote: |
So, Bucheon, your point is what? That you can call a tight election a month before it happens with impunity, then tell other people that they are responsible for Bush's victory?
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No. My point was be aware of who you are speaking to. |
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EFLtrainer

Joined: 04 May 2005
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Posted: Fri Sep 09, 2005 9:47 am Post subject: |
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The Washington Post reported that five of the top eight FEMA officials had little experience in handling disasters and owed their jobs to their Republican political ties to Bush.
As political operatives took the top jobs, professionals and experts in hurricanes and disasters left the agency, the newspaper said |
Sorry, but I have to resurrect criminally negligent cronyism, i.e., high crimes and misdemeanors: knowingly putting your friends in jobs they are unqualified for, resulting in unnecessary deaths and destruction. Even worse than first reported.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050909/ts_nm/katrina_wrap_dc
And about those polls...
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A Pew Research Center poll found 67 percent of Americans thought Bush could have done more to speed up relief efforts, and just 28 percent believed he did all he could. The president's approval rating fell to 40 percent, down four points since July to the lowest point Pew has recorded. |
Expect the numbers to continue to climb. Er... to fall. |
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EFLtrainer

Joined: 04 May 2005
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Posted: Fri Sep 09, 2005 9:51 am Post subject: Halleluja!!!! |
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By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer
1 minute ago
WASHINGTON - Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown is being relieved of his duties in managing the Bush administration's Hurricane Katrina relief and recovery efforts, The Associated Press has learned.
Brown is being sent back to Washington from Baton Rouge, where he was the primary official overseeing the federal government's response to the disaster, according to two federal officials who declined to be identified before the announcement.
Brown will be replaced by Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad w. Allen, who was overseeing New Orleans relief and rescue efforts.
Brown has been under fire because of the administration's slow response to the magnitude of the hurricane. On Thursday, questions were raised about whether he padded his resume to highlight his previous emergency management background.
Less than an hour before Brown's removal came to light, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Brown had not resigned and the president had not asked for his resignation.
McClellan did not directly answer a question about whether the president had full confidence in Brown.
"We appreciate all those who are working round the clock, and that's the way I would answer it," he said. |
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050909/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/katrina_brown |
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Nowhere Man

Joined: 08 Feb 2004
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Posted: Fri Sep 09, 2005 11:21 am Post subject: ... |
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Yeah, I know. You have no tolerance for a lot of things. It's probably your mother's fault. Did she never say "no" to you as a child? |
Thank you, Herr Freud.
Or, wait a minute... HARASSMENT! STALKING! STOP LYING!
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Look, first of all, on Bush's culpability: I'll refer you to my first and last post's on p. 4 of this thread. |
OK. Here are your page 4 comments:
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If your position is that Bush "doesn't get it" on a wide array of issues -- not just the damage in New Orleans -- and that he appears extremely insensitive, even carefree, and that this sometimes makes your blood boil, then you'll get no argument or objections from me because I feel the same way about him: he is the wrong man to be in the White House. |
You left out the bit about how you admire him for being able to joke about himself, but I'll forgive that. I believe what you're saying is that there are many reasons to dislike Bush, but criticizing him in this case is wrong. No?
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Whether or not he could have responded any faster is not clear, but Clinton would have certainly communicated to all of those people that he understood their situation and that, at least, would have given them the moral courage to better make it through the next day or two (or three). Bush is totally incapable of doing that. Bush has put Clinton to work here, though, so that is at least a positive step... |
You later amend this, I believe, to make it clear, right? HEY DON'T CRITICIZE BUSH ON THIS. Let's wait for the superspecial moment.
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Blaming Bush for the hurricane and the subsequent flooding, though, that's just *beep* stupid. |
He cut the levee funding to basically zero.
He restructured federal programs and appointed the president of the Arabian Horse Association to handle such situations.
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I'm ready to ammend that and add to it: it is no longer disputed that the govt was slow in responding to this. It could have responded faster, but only with the President's leadership. He failed to provide that leadership when it was needed, and I fault him for that. This is easily explained by, like I've said previously, Bush's refusal to believe that natural disasters and weather problems are real. He seems to think that it's a trick someone from "the other side" is trying to play on him to change his rigid views on global warming, etc. |
Again, you're sounding a bit critical. JUST WAIT, AND LET'S GET HIM WHEN HE REALLY FUCKS UP!
Response also includes preparation.
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On the "cronyism" you guys are conveniently citing now. Why didn't you attack the FEMA director's qualifications before? I'll tell you why: it wasn't really that important to you. Now, however, you have an opportunity to try to take down a Bush Administration official, and you're going after him with all guns blazing. |
Well, he hadn't fucked anything up yet, had he?
Now that he has, apparently it's opportunism, and not the blatant glaring fact that he fucked this up, that explains criticizing him and the "leader of the free world" who appointed the President of the Arabian Horse Association to deal with natural disasters.
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And that's fine. That's the old politics of usual response. We get them, they get us. Just be real careful and cya whenever you're in Washington. |
And that's fine. Levees breaking are just an example of "Mother Nature slapping us around".
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Don't do any real work, though, because everything comes down to politics and partisan attacks. |
And this post drips with the deep-thinking sweat you put in on the topic.
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That's what's wrong with everything in Washington, and people like you and EFL Trainer are not part of the solution but very much a part of the problem. Too indignant and righteous, though, to see that. |
Righteous? See your comments on page 4:
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Blaming Bush for the hurricane and the subsequent flooding, though, that's just *beep* stupid. |
Yes, we should defer to your "don't play the blame game, let's wait till there's a real mistake" strategy.
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Should the FEMA director be fired for this and replaced with a career professional (or someone else)?
I don't know. Here's the issue as I see it: |
Should the FEMA director be fired? No. The President should be fired.
But of course there isn't a law in the books for such a thing.
BUT BUT, hey? What's that smell? It smells like Columbus. It smells like Gopher dismissing this because this is "just the way things are".
Take a look below:
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Should an elected president have the prerogative to place his or her people in leading positions throughout the bureaucracy? |
This is a blatant attempt to redirect discussion to suit Gopher's purposes.
The answer to this is obviously YES. It would be very interesting to see how our government would or could be amended to prevent the appointment of "his people" to leading positions.
It's hard for me to imagine a free country where this wouldn't be allowed.
Does this excuse Bush for appointing some horse guy to preside over national disasters? NO.
Any US president could, for example, appoint Carrot Top as head of the Center for Disease Control, Attorney General, or Ambassador to Russia. He IS the president. He can do as he sees fit.
BUT, with Carrot Top running the CDC, he is responsible for this appointment if Carrot Top fails to prevent an outbreak of the Ebola virus. Why wouldn't he be responsible?
Arguing that JFK appointed someone about as qualified as Carrot Top to oversee the Bay of Pigs invasion does NOT in any way explain or justify appointing a man whose specialty is horse shows to handle natural disasters.
This man is THE PRESIDENT. The buck stops at his own appointments and his own decisions.
Your trivia about JFK doesn't lend a single thing to this discussion.
It FLABBERGASTS me that a so-called academic would even attempt to argue such an angle.
To finish, let's forget about page 4. Your early arguments were that this would've happened irregardless of whether a Democrat or Republican was in the White House. Do you have some crystal ball to prove this, or are you speculating just as you, hypocrite, accuse others of?
Is your "the same thing would have happened anyway" argument based on anything concrete, or is it just you tossing sandbags on the broken levee? |
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igotthisguitar

Joined: 08 Apr 2003 Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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Posted: Sun Sep 11, 2005 1:19 am Post subject: |
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Dodging any accountabilty for the (PROBLEM) scale of destruction, confusion, carnage & speed of response, ( public outcry REACTION ... FOR GOD'S SAKE SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING !!! ) the Bush admin. & its octopus cronies clearly feel they have what it takes to play a central role in contributing to the Katrina disaster's final SOLUTION.
'Ordo Ab Chao'
Katrina May Cost U.S. as Much as Two Wars
By DONNA CASSATA, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - One storm could end up costing almost as much as two wars. Although estimates of Hurricane Katrina's staggering toll on the treasury are highly imprecise, costs are certain to climb to $200 billion in the coming weeks. The final accounting could approach the more than $300 billion spent in four years to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Analysts inside and outside government agree that the $62 billion that Washington has spent so far was merely the first installment of perhaps an unparalleled sum.
"I cannot put a cost figure on it," Vice President Dick Cheney said Thursday in a visit to the hard-hit states.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050911/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/katrina_calculating_costs ...
Firms with Bush Ties Snag "Sweetheart" Katrina Deals
Sat Sep 10,11:03 AM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Companies with ties to the Bush White House and the former head of FEMA are clinching some of the administration's first disaster relief and reconstruction contracts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
At least two major corporate clients of lobbyist Joe Allbaugh, President George W. Bush's former campaign manager and a former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, have already been tapped to start recovery work along the battered Gulf Coast.
One is Shaw Group Inc. and the other is Halliburton Co. subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root. Vice President Dick Cheney is a former head of Halliburton.
Bechtel National Inc., a unit of San Francisco-based Bechtel Corp., has also been selected by FEMA to provide short-term housing for people displaced by the hurricane. Bush named Bechtel's CEO to his Export Council and put the former CEO of Bechtel Energy in charge of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050910/pl_nm/contracts_dc ...
Last edited by igotthisguitar on Sat Jun 10, 2006 1:26 am; edited 1 time in total |
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igotthisguitar

Joined: 08 Apr 2003 Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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Posted: Sat Jun 10, 2006 1:25 am Post subject: |
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E-mail shows Bush glad FEMA took Katrina flak
Saturday, June 10, 2006 Posted: 0209 GMT (1009 HKT)
Former FEMA director Michael Brown discusses the e-mail Friday on CNN's "The Situation Room."
WATCH
New ammo in post-Katrina blame game (4:00)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The former emergency management chief who quit amid widespread criticism over his handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina said he received an e-mail before his resignation stating President Bush was glad to see the Oval Office had dodged most of the criticism.
Michael Brown, former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Friday that he received the e-mail five days before his resignation from a high-level White House official whom he declined to identify.
The e-mail stated that Bush was relieved that Brown -- and not Bush or Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff -- was bearing the brunt of the flak over the government's handling of Katrina.
(Watch how Brown fell from grace -- 4:00)
The September 2005 e-mail reads: "I did hear of one reference to you, at the Cabinet meeting yesterday. I wasn't there, but I heard someone commented that the press was sure beating up on Mike Brown, to which the president replied, ' I'd rather they beat up on him than me or Chertoff.' "
The sender adds, "Congratulations on doing a great job of diverting hostile fire away from the leader."
CNN has been unable to verify the authenticity of the e-mail, but the White House designation "eop.gov" is part of the sender's e-mail address, indicating it came from the Executive Office of the President.
A White House spokesperson said in an e-mail to CNN: "This is an old rumor that surfaced months ago and we're not commenting on it. This story has already been reported and I have heard nothing at all that would substantiate it."
The e-mail was provided to CNN on the condition that the sender's name be redacted. Brown said only that the sender was a "good friend of the president," who has been with the president "a long time."
Brown said did he, too, considers the sender a friend.
While acknowledging that part of a political appointee's job is to "take the sword" for the president, Brown said he has grown weary of Chertoff making him a scapegoat for FEMA's failures in the wake of Katrina.
"I'm not willing to take that sword for Michael Chertoff," Brown said.
"I'm frankly getting tired of Chertoff out there, every time he testifies, talking about how Brown didn't do this or that," Brown said. "As long as Chertoff continues to criticize me, I think we need to recognize that I was doing everything I needed to do down there."
Brown also reiterated an earlier call for the resignation of Chertoff, whom he said suffers from "political tone deafness." Brown suggested that despite announcements to the contrary, FEMA is not prepared for the 2006 hurricane season, which began June 1.
"I want the White House in general, in particular Michael Chertoff, to stop dragging me through the mud every time the issue of FEMA comes up," he said. "There's a lot of things that need to be done to fix FEMA and continuing to throw that at me is not going to solve anything."
Brown's attorney, Andy Lester, who first wrote about the e-mail in the conservative weekly publication Human Events, said the White House was handling the situation in "a cowardly way."
"What the White House was actually doing was taking some stories that got started in the media and pushing them and pushing them until everything got diverted to Mike," Lester said. "Mike Brown was being made the scapegoat."
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/06/09/katrina.email/index.html |
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Gopher

Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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Posted: Sat Jun 10, 2006 8:45 am Post subject: |
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Perhaps it is time to stop focusing on the partisan bickering, deciding whose side you are on, and to start looking into the complexity of the issue, starting at ground level...
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The levee failures around New Orleans rank among the worst engineering disasters of all time. Some of the breaches can be blamed purely on the storm -- it was huge, after all.
But investigators are finding that... |
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5418521 |
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EFLtrainer

Joined: 04 May 2005
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Posted: Sat Jun 10, 2006 11:45 am Post subject: |
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the problem with you, gooph, is that that is ll you've *ever* wanted to focus on.... and notice how nicely it's all being swept under the rug, just as you suggested it should be?
Ah, but you're a great American. |
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