Bush is the root of all evil - Part 2

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by GePap
The government of New Orleans has been failing the people of NO for the last century, why should they be any better now? This is the most violent, poorest, least educated large City in America. All of a sudden I am supposed to be surprised that they can't handle the second strongest Hurricane to hit the US since records began??

But the fact that it was not until 4 days later that significant Federal aid began to pour into the area, THAT is a surprise, cause I assume the Locals and State asked for Federal help on monday, and since Bush had already made the areas disaster zones on saturday, meaning that the green light for Federal aid was already there, why should it take 96 hours?

Exactly. It's not a question of the levees. It's about the failure to respond quickly.

[Boris Godunov]

If anybody wants to read about Michael Brown's *cough cough* qualifications to be head of FEMA, lookee here:

http://tnr.com/user/nregi.mhtml?i=20050919&s=campos091905

You'd need a subscription, but here is a summary on http://www.horsesass.org/index.php?p=988

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In a devastating expose published today in The New Republic, University of Colorodo-Boulder law professor Paul Campos determines to answer the question "of exactly what, given Brown's real biography, he is qualified to do." The answer, not surprisingly, is very little.

To understand the Mike Brown saga, one has to know something about the intricacies of the legal profession, beginning with the status of the law school he attended. Brown's biography on FEMA's website reports that he's a graduate of the Oklahoma City University School of Law. This is not, to put it charitably, a well-known institution. For example, I've been a law professor for the past 15 years and have never heard of it. Of more relevance is the fact that, until 2003, the school was not even a member of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS)--the organization that, along with the American Bar Association, accredits the nation's law schools. Most prospective law students won't even consider applying to a non-AALS law school unless they have no other option, because many employers have a policy of not considering graduates of non-AALS institutions. So it's fair to say that Brown embarked on his prospective legal career from the bottom of the profession's hierarchy.

According to Campos, Brown received his J.D. in 1981, and spent the next couple years representing the interests of a "prominent local family" in Enid, Oklahoma, followed by an 18-month stint at a local law firm (that no longer exists.) But it appears that by 1987 he had already more or less abandoned his legal career. From 1991 to 2001 he served as commissioner of judges and stewards for the International Arabian Horse Association, a full-time position from which he resigned under pressure.

What, then, are we to make of the claim in Brown's FEMA biography that, prior to joining the Agency, he had spent most of his professional career practicing law in Colorado? Normally, an attorney practicing law in a state for ten years would have left a record of his experience in public documents. But just about the only evidence of Brown's Colorado legal career is the Web page he submitted to Findlaw.com, an Internet site for people seeking legal representation. There, he lists himself as a member of the "International Arabian Horse Association Legal Dept." and claims to be competent to practice law across a dizzying spectrum of specialties--estate planning, family law, employment law for both plaintiffs and defendants, real-estate law, sports law, labor law, and legislative practice. With all this expertise, it's all the more striking that one can't find any other evidence of Brown's legal career in Colorado.

Campos further deconstructs Brown's FEMA bio, which he impressively claims to have served as "a bar examiner on ethics and professional responsibility for the Oklahoma Supreme Court and as a hearing examiner for the Colorado Supreme Court." Campos' translation?

In Oklahoma, he graded answers to bar exam questions, and, in Colorado, he volunteered to serve on the local attorney disciplinary board.

Ouch.

Campos' summation is equally devastating, and a pointed critique of the Bush administration.

When Brown left the iaha four years ago, he was, among other things, a failed former lawyer--a man with a 20-year-old degree from a semi-accredited law school who hadn't attempted to practice law in a serious way in nearly 15 years and who had just been forced out of his job in the wake of charges of impropriety. At this point in his life, returning to his long-abandoned legal career would have been very difficult in the competitive Colorado legal market. Yet, within months of leaving the IAHA , he was handed one of the top legal positions in the entire federal government: general counsel for a major federal agency. A year later, he was made its number-two official, and, a year after that, Bush appointed him director of FEMA.

It's bad enough when attorneys are named to government jobs for which their careers, no matter how distinguished, don't qualify them. But Brown wasn't a distinguished lawyer: He was hardly a lawyer at all. When he left the IAHA , he was a 47-year-old with a very thin resumé and no job. Yet he was also what's known in the Mafia as a "connected guy." That such a person could end up in one of the federal government's most important positions tells you all you need to know about how the Bush administration works--or, rather, doesn't.

Once again, this has always been a story about cronyism, and the human lives it may have cost. And now we know that not only did Brown lack the qualifications to lead FEMA, he also lacked the legal qualifications to serve as its general counsel, his first position at the agency. It's not just Brown who should be fired... it's the incompetent president who appointed him.
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Cronyism at its worst, and it led to people dying.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by GePap
The government of New Orleans has been failing the people of NO for the last century, why should they be any better now? This is the most violent, poorest, least educated large City in America. All of a sudden I am supposed to be surprised that they can't handle the second strongest Hurricane to hit the US since records began??

But the fact that it was not until 4 days later that significant Federal aid began to pour into the area, THAT is a surprise, cause I assume the Locals and State asked for Federal help on monday, and since Bush had already made the areas disaster zones on saturday, meaning that the green light for Federal aid was already there, why should it take 96 hours?

I'm agog. I agree with GePap.

Boo hiss to the Department of homeland security. Shades of national response emergency efforts to come.

Boo hiss to all things bungled by a centralized bueracracy.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Jack_www


While I agree the Federal response to this diaster really bad, the local officals could have done a lot of things to prevent the massive loss of life. One they ordered the evacuation order too late, and they had city buses and school buses that just sat there and could have been used to evacuate the ones who could not leave on there own. The local officals have the same amount of Blame as the Federal government, at least in my eyes.

One good thing that is coming out of this is that almost all the other States in union are reviewing their own diaster plans to make sure what happen in New Orleans does not happen again. Here is a link to the story about it, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9244376/

Lets say the evacuation orders were given one day before- would that really have made much of a difference? Sorry, but I don;t buy the notion that the NO and Lousiana governments could have evacuated 100,000 poor and elderly and handiccapped people, including emptying all the hospitals, with just 24 extra hours.And given the immense expense this would entail, I can;t see any locality deciding to just do without knowing for sure that they were going to get hit worst, and it was not until saturday that New Orleans as the target of a Category 5 storm became the big story.

See, that is the thing, governments, especialy governments that care more about the budget than anything else (have to be accountable to those tax payers) are not going to undergo hugely expensive operations that up-end huge numbers of people without any thought. Besides, to come up with an evacuation plan for 100,000 people means knowing were to put them. Were were they going to get put?

Even now, thousands are holed up and they are being forceably removed. How then could anyone expect for the City of NO to have been empty when this occured, or even down to say less than 50,000?

The shame here is not the people killed on Sunday and Monday by the storm and the flooding. The shame here are the people who dies between Tuesday and Friday because of the collapse of order, the lack of resources, and the lack of a quick response.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Jack_www


While I agree the Federal response to this diaster really bad, the local officals could have done a lot of things to prevent the massive loss of life. One they ordered the evacuation order too late, and they had city buses and school buses that just sat there and could have been used to evacuate the ones who could not leave on there own. The local officals have the same amount of Blame as the Federal government, at least in my eyes.

One good thing that is coming out of this is that almost all the other States in union are reviewing their own diaster plans to make sure what happen in New Orleans does not happen again. Here is a link to the story about it, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9244376/

What are we doing in Cali about THE BIG ONE?

[Winston]

For the last time! I don't like Bush, and everything is his fault. Nothing you could say will ever change my mind!

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by GePap
The government of New Orleans has been failing the people of NO for the last century, why should they be any better now? This is the most violent, poorest, least educated large City in America. All of a sudden I am supposed to be surprised that they can't handle the second strongest Hurricane to hit the US since records began??

Yep, this is a given that all the locals will tell you. They even joke about it. The governments in Louisiana are corrupt to the core.

But the fact that it was not until 4 days later that significant Federal aid began to pour into the area, THAT is a surprise, cause I assume the Locals and State asked for Federal help on monday, and since Bush had already made the areas disaster zones on saturday, meaning that the green light for Federal aid was already there, why should it take 96 hours?

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Winston
For the last time! I don't like Bush, and everything is his fault. Nothing you could say will ever change my mind!

Sorry, but that tired old copout doesn't work this time. Even some of his long time supporters say that he f'ed this one up.

But in your mind he can do no wrong. So you're just doing the exact thing you accuse others of doing.

[Sava]

Originally posted by Winston
For the last time! I don't like Bush, and everything is his fault. Nothing you could say will ever change my mind!

Can you even try to debate any of the arguments rationally? Or do you just spout off nonsense?

This is how things have been going on.

Bush critics present reasonable arguments supported by fact.

Bush supporters say "YOU BLAME EVERYTHING ON BUSH".



"This is why you fail" - Yoda

[Ted Striker]

own3d

[Jack_www]

Originally posted by GePap


Lets say the evacuation orders were given one day before- would that really have made much of a difference? Sorry, but I don;t buy the notion that the NO and Lousiana governments could have evacuated 100,000 poor and elderly and handiccapped people, including emptying all the hospitals, with just 24 extra hours.And given the immense expense this would entail, I can;t see any locality deciding to just do without knowing for sure that they were going to get hit worst, and it was not until saturday that New Orleans as the target of a Category 5 storm became the big story.

See, that is the thing, governments, especialy governments that care more about the budget than anything else (have to be accountable to those tax payers) are not going to undergo hugely expensive operations that up-end huge numbers of people without any thought. Besides, to come up with an evacuation plan for 100,000 people means knowing were to put them. Were were they going to get put?

Even now, thousands are holed up and they are being forceably removed. How then could anyone expect for the City of NO to have been empty when this occured, or even down to say less than 50,000?

The shame here is not the people killed on Sunday and Monday by the storm and the flooding. The shame here are the people who dies between Tuesday and Friday because of the collapse of order, the lack of resources, and the lack of a quick response.

I did not expect it to be empty, that is impossible. When people's lives are at risk who in the world would be concerned about how much it is going to coast the tax payer, that is stupid. And if people want to live in New Orleans again, I bet that they will have detailed plans to evacuate the entire city.

Let us say that they did not use the buses, the least they could have done is put the buses in an area that could have gotten to after the storm and used the buses then. Anther thing they could have done is made sure the places they told people that could not leave the city to go to, had enough food and water to last at least 72 hours. The list goes on.

I think FEMA also sucked too, but the city and state could have done things that could have saved a lot of people's lives.

[Mrs. Tuberski]

Guys How many times does this need to be said all the us presidents sucked at one time or another some more then others but be that as it may. I think the title needs to be changed to the us president is the root of all evil. You have idiot war crazy boy in office now, we had pervo boy and his *** stained dress before him, then we had jackass boy sr with a itch for war as well, before *** boy, and the list goes on to the likes of jelly bean idiot and peanut eating dumb ass. shall i continue???

[Sava]

yes

[Ted Striker]

YES



You know how they have Presidents pictures in elementary school, usually they go around the whole class. Well instead of their actual names, Mrs. T should write down her own descriptions, "Jelly Bean idiot, President 1980-1988," "Pervo Boy" etc

[Mrs. Tuberski]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
YES



You know how they have Presidents pictures in elementary school, usually they go around the whole class. Well instead of their actual names, Mrs. T should write down her own descriptions, "Jelly Bean idiot, President 1980-1988," "Pervo Boy" etc

Yeah and then after i did that, id find my self in a padded white room with secret service agents asking me what i know bout the jelly beans and peanuts and the infamous blue dress