Brown should be prosecuted... Nuff Said...

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Federal emergency officials failed to accept offers of possibly life-saving aid from the Department of Interior immediately after Hurricane Katrina, according to documents obtained by CNN.

The Interior Department offered the Federal Emergency Management Agency the use of personnel who were experienced in water rescues and also offered boats, helicopters, heavy equipment and rooms, the documents say.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, chairwoman of a Senate committee with jurisdiction over the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA, said the additional resources may have saved lives. (Watch how FEMA brushed off offers of help -- 2:14)

"It is indeed possible that there was additional suffering and maybe even loss of life that might not have occurred if these assets had been deployed," Collins said.

Her panel, the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, is set to hold hearings Monday looking into the search-and-rescue response to Katrina.

A spokesman for Homeland Security, which includes FEMA, says the Bush administration is examining how to better utilize federal and other resources in catastrophes.

But, he observed, "Were there federal assets that were not used in Katrina? Of course."

The Interior Department offered FEMA 500 rooms, 119 pieces of heavy equipment, 300 dump trucks and other vehicles, 300 boats, 11 aircraft and 400 law enforcement officers, according to a questionnaire answered by a department official.

Interior law enforcement officers included special agents and refuge officers from the department's Fish and Wildlife Service.

"Although we attempted to provide these assets, we were unable to efficiently integrate and deploy these resources," an Interior Department official wrote the Senate committee investigating the government's response to Katrina.

Collins said she is particularly concerned by the fact that the offer of help was from the federal government.

"Now, you might be able to understand if it came from outside government," she said. "But this is another federal agency, an agency that was offering trained personnel and exactly the assets that the federal government needed to assist in the search-and-rescue operations."

Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, the committee's senior Democrat, says in a draft statement for Monday's hearing that "the greatest honor we can pay those who risked their lives in the aftermath of Katrina would be to make sure that the heroes of the next catastrophe are given the proper equipment and the clear plan they need to succeed"

According to government officials, 1,322 people died from Katrina, all but 15 of the deaths occurring in Louisiana and Mississippi.

The Senate committee released e-mails that document FEMA's decision to ground its search-and-rescue teams three days after Katrina because of security concerns.

Before then, the Interior Department had offered FEMA hundreds of law enforcement officers trained in search-and-rescue, emergency medical services and evacuation, according to the documents.

And no Mr. President it aint all Gumbo and Bourbon Street.

In Search of Utopia's Charity of choice is the Red Cross. I have been working on ways we can help and have come up with a couple of ideas. I am still working with The Commissar to figure out a way for he and I to work together on some kind of bipartisan effort, but that for now is stalled. In the interim, here is what we are planning. At the end of September, I will personally donate a selection of Costa Rican Gourmet Coffees, or a box of premium cigars (eh, the kind you can not get in the U.S., lets just say), to the person who donates the largest ammount to any Katrina Related Charity.

All I require is a reciept of some sort showing the amount of your donation. Due to the cost of these items, minimum donation is $50. I will buy both items and the runner up will recieve whatever the high bidder did not choose. I will pay for shipping anywhere in the world.

I will also be working with my Costa Rican Business Parners to see what we can come up with. Stayed tuned for developments.

I still have hopes that we can create some sort of Bipartisan effort to raise money. I would appreciate any trackbacks and linking to this post.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Senate Republicans on Wednesday scuttled an attempt by Sen. Hillary Clinton to establish an independent, bipartisan panel patterned after the 9/11 Commission to investigate what went wrong with federal, state and local governments' response to Hurricane Katrina.

I'm not surprised, are you surprised?

Bush: 'I take responsibility' for U.S. failures on Katrina

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- President Bush on Tuesday said he takes responsibility for the federal government's failures in responding to Hurricane Katrina.

"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government and to the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility," Bush said during a joint news conference with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

That is all I wanted to hear. I congradulate the President on showing the leadership that was expected of him.

I recieved an email this morning from a person who runs a great Katrina Resource site. Check it out.

"There are still a lot of things I want to say about Hurricane Katrina and the savage, apocalyptic vision of America that she revealed, floating face down in the water. But last night I came across an account of the search for real bodies -- not metaphorical ones -- in the stinking ruins of New Orleans. It's like something out of the charnel houses of World War II:

Volunteer rescuer Gregg Silverman, part of a 14-boat contingent from Columbus, Ohio, said he expected to find many more survivors in his excursion through the city's flooded streets. Instead, he found mostly bodies.

"They had me climb up on a roof, and I did bring an ax up to where a guy had tried to stick a pipe up through a vent,'' Silverman said. "Unfortunately, he had probably just recently perished. His dog was still there, barking. The dog wouldn't come. We had to leave the dog just up there in the attic.''

As for other bodies his group encountered: "Obviously we are not recovering them. We are just tying them up to banisters, leaving them on the roof.''

It is reported that the state of Louisiana has placed an order for 25,000 body bags.

For some reason, it wasn't until I read that story that the full horror of what happened in New Orleans finally hit home for me. Maybe it's because I was on the road part of last week, and missed most of the live broadcasts during the days when the city was in complete chaos. Maybe it's because I don't watch TV much even when I am home. But until now I've thought about the catastrophe more in terms of the loss of a great American city -- and less in terms of the individual human lives that were destroyed.

No longer. The image -- of a man frantically trying to breath through a pipe stuck in a ventilator grate as the waters rise over his head -- is too searing to hold at an emotional distance. How long did he survive, submerged in total darkness? And how many others died in the same bizarre trap -- too weak or terrified to break through the layers of plywood and asphalt that had suddenly become the lids on their underwater coffins?

Thinking about those deaths is like looking at pictures of people jumping, hand in hand, from the windows of the World Trade Center on 9/11 -- forced in a moment of howling panic to choose between the flames and the long fall to the pavement below. Such images are unendurable. The mind recoils from them as if we ourselves were caught in the same trap.

p>And suddenly all the backbiting over who failed first -- or most often, or most spectacularly -- seems too vile to worry about, much less write about." Billmon

He's right, and I can't take it anymore either... I have so much I want to say, so much anger. I want to rage against the injustice of what happened in New Orleans and elsewhere. I want someone to blame. I NEED someone to be angry with, even to HATE. I need it in a visceral way that surprises me at times with it's force. I just finished reading several posts by one of my Blog Daddies, Billmon, and I feel anger rising up in my like acidic bile, that no amount of Alka Seltzer will suppress.

I am an American, and yet I am ashamed of being an American right now... My driver asked me yesterday how a country as Rich as America could let so many die. I had no answer. Tomorrow is 9/11 and there will be solemn ceremonies and the trotting out of stories of heroism and personal reflection. I once took part in all of that. I wont tomorrow, because honestly, I don't have the stomach to look back any more. I will instead be thinking about a Disaster that did not have to happen. I will be thinking of a man desperately drowning while trying to breath through a pipe. I will be thinking about Racist cops denying people escape. I will be thinking about a Horse Breeder put in charge of saving lives. And I will be thinking about other heroes. The ones who tried desperately to help their fellows, even as their government city, state and federal failed them miserably.

The accountability argument has been made on both sides, usually drawn down party lines, and Billmon is right, it all seems pretty shallow now. There is a part of me so filled with anger that I want to stand on my roof and scream for justice, scream for retribution, but I see little changing, in spite of the outrage. When this is all over, I have no doubt that Karina will make 9/11 look insignificant in its human toll. Louisiana has ordered 25,000 body bags. Wrap your mind around that one for a minute. And yet, shamefully, I doubt that any politician or leader will drape themselves in the flag of this disaster. Instead we will likely see a whitewashing of the entire event.

So I am done. This will likely be my last post on Katrina and it's aftermath. Leave history and God to be the judge of the failures of men, because I have no doubt my country and those who support those who failed, have not the stomach for that judgement....

Some Other Posts you might want to Read:

Digby Expresses the Outrage that I feel right now.

The New York Times chronicles what went wrong. Hat Tip: Talk Left.

Brother Cobb answers his Conservative Brethren's criticism of Ray Nagin, and does a helluva job of it!

And Newsweek demonstrates just how disconnected from Reality Bush really is.

And this... Cop... Should be lined up against one of the levees and shot.

No... I don't want to talk about it any more, but I am sure as hell glad someone does...

This would be hilarious, if it were not so tragic in light of what has happened in the Gulf States.

See here and here...

Remember Leadership... The Platform of the GOP in Last Year's Elections?

On Scarborough Country, Ret. Lt. Col. Ralph Peters, an avid Bush supporter criticised everyone involved in the massive failures of leadership during Katrina and put the blame squarely on the shoulders of George Bush...

See the Video on Crooks and Liars

From Yahoo News:

Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown, the principal target of harsh criticism of the Bush administration's response to Hurricane Katrina, was relieved of his onsite command Friday.

He will be replaced by Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad W. Allen, who was overseeing New Orleans relief, recovery and rescue efforts, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced.

The Article goes on to say:

Brown has been under fire and facing calls for his resignation 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 exaggerate 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.

Democratic lawmakers weren't satisfied with the move; they immediately demanded Brown's ouster from FEMA.

"The events of the last ten days have shown that Mr. Brown has repeatedly exercised poor judgment and has failed in his basic responsibilities," said a letter to Bush from Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid and Sens. Dick Durbin, Debbie Stabenow and Charles E. Schumer. "His continued presence in this critical position endangers the success of the ongoing recovery efforts. ... It is not enough to remove Mr. Brown from the disaster scene."

Republican Sen. Trent Lott, whose Pascagoula, Miss., home was destroyed in the storm, said he, too, had concluded that FEMA "was overwhelmed, undermanned and not capable of doing its job" under Brown's leadership.

"Michael Brown has been acting like a private, instead of a general," Lott said.

Chertoff suggested the shift came as the Gulf Coast efforts were entering "a new phase of the recovery operation." He said Brown would return to Washington to oversee the government's response to other potential disasters.

Of course it's all my fault Brown was relieved, or at least the fault of all us Moonbat's, of which I will now have to add Senator Lott. That someone as serious as The Commissar would not be standing right next to me arguing for the removal of the Horse Breeder, is beyond belief!

Republicans and Conservatives keep accusing us of politicizing the disaster, but in my point of view, the worst politicizing going on is the refusal of some on the Right to accept that the majority of the responsibility for this monstrous disaster, lies in the hands of the Federal Government, a Federal Government packed with cronies instead of professionals. Do the local Democrats share the blame, you betcha, and I have said it repeatedly, but when it became apparent that they were overwhelmed, it was the responsibility of OUR President and his Team to Step Up and show the leadership they bragged about all through the campaign last year. They didn't... LIVE WITH IT!

Jeeze I am beginning to believe that failure to accept responsibility is a problem the whole Damned GOP and all its supporters share, not just the man in the White House!

Here's A Newsflash

Five of eight top Federal Emergency Management Agency officials came to their posts with virtually no experience in handling disasters and now lead an agency whose ranks of seasoned crisis managers have thinned dramatically since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

FEMA's top three leaders -- Director Michael D. Brown, Chief of Staff Patrick J. Rhode and Deputy Chief of Staff Brooks D. Altshuler -- arrived with ties to President Bush's 2000 campaign or to the White House advance operation, according to the agency. Two other senior operational jobs are filled by a former Republican lieutenant governor of Nebraska and a U.S. Chamber of Commerce official who was once a political operative.

Five of eight top Federal Emergency Management Agency officials came to their posts with virtually no experience in handling disasters and now lead an agency whose ranks of seasoned crisis managers have thinned dramatically since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

FEMA's top three leaders -- Director Michael D. Brown, Chief of Staff Patrick J. Rhode and Deputy Chief of Staff Brooks D. Altshuler -- arrived with ties to President Bush's 2000 campaign or to the White House advance operation, according to the agency. Two other senior operational jobs are filled by a former Republican lieutenant governor of Nebraska and a U.S. Chamber of Commerce official who was once a political operative.

And No Sadie, I am not reforming anything. If I had my way, I would be "reforming" the White House, and half the politicians from both parties, right out of office. But as your favorite, "Communist Pinko," I really must know, how did someone as obviously conservative as you get in the Progressive Blog alliance in the first freakin' place, other than knowing Nick? And you rode that horse long enough to get your blog reccognized and then jumped ship to the other side. You give a whole new meaning to the term "link whoring," my dear... I may well be a pinko in the eyes of some, but I damned sure am a consistent one! The only thing I see progressive about you are your attitudes towards sex. And I frankly dont see a damned thing funny about all the dead people floating to the surface in the Gulf States right now!

UPDATE: Welcome Daou Report Readers

UPDATE II: Welcome Readers of The National Review Online.

Update at bottom of page.

From Frumious Blues:

Through the day, I saw sporadic reports on various blogs that the military in New Orleans are trying to keep journalists out of the city. Via Atrios (via Josh Marshall) comes this confirming report from NBC anchorman Brian Williams:

National Guard soldiers are ubiquitous. At one fire scene, I counted law enforcement personnel (who I presume were on hand to guarantee the safety of the firefighters) from four separate jurisdictions, as far away as Connecticut and Illinois. And tempers are getting hot. While we were attempting to take pictures of the National Guard (a unit from Oklahoma) taking up positions outside a Brooks Brothers on the edge of the Quarter, the sergeant ordered us to the other side of the boulevard. The short version is: there won’t be any pictures of this particular group of guard soldiers on our newscast tonight. Rules (or I suspect in this case an order on a whim) like those do not HELP the palpable feeling that this area is somehow separate from the United States.

At that same fire scene, a police officer from out of town raised the muzzle of her weapon and aimed it at members of the media

obvious members of the media armed only with notepads. Her actions
(apparently because she thought reporters were encroaching on the
scene) were over the top and she was told. There are automatic weapons and shotguns everywhere you look. It's a stance that perhaps would have been appropriate during the open lawlessness that has long since ended on most of these streets. Someone else points out on television as I post this: the fact that the National Guard now bars entry (by journalists) to the very places where people last week were barred from LEAVING (The Convention Center and Superdome) is a kind of perverse and perfectly backward postscript to this awful chapter in American history.

What are they trying
to hide? Their dicks have been hanging out on national TV for a week
now. The only possible rationale for prohibiting press access is to
keep us from knowing exactly how badly they fucked over the country.

You know what I find most offensive in all this.... It is that the media has been complicit in their own defanging. Where has the outrage been for five years as this administration has operated time and time again in secret. The no bid contracts, Abu Gharib, Camp Delta, Downing Street, Gannongate, 9/11... Time and time again this administration has played it's Rovian games unquestioned by the Press. The Majority of the American public have went about their business oblivious to the putrid stench of a political system rotten to the core.

The Press, long champions of "the truth," have served as miserable lap dogs to an unacknowledged "Ministry of Propaganda," run by Karl Rove. The Republican Spin Machine, supported by Conservative Blogs have fed the American public a constant steam of "truthspeak," creating an impression of Leadership when it never existed beyond the photo op and sound bite. A couple of two bit lawyers and a call center manager from the Midwest become celebrities while shamelessly calling dissenters, "traitors." While the real treason lies among those who fail to question. We have lost our way as a Democracy because some people have feel in love with the idea of power, power at the cost of freedom.

What happened in the Gulf remains a National Embarrassment. No amount of censorship will rid the American mind of the sense of powerlessness we all now feel. Nor will it change the fact that the sense of Safety Americans have had, the promise of Security was a sham, and God help us if another disaster or terrorist strike happens in the U.S. anytime soon. The utter ineptitude of the people running our country, long ago exposed to those us who immune to the snake charmer tactics of Rove and Company, has now been exposed to the entire world. Unfortunately thousands of Americans may have died to finaly demonstrate that indeed... The Emperor has no clothes.

Unfortunately there are still those who refuse to believe what their own eyes and ears tell them. I had a long discussion with a conservative friend tonight who absolutely refused to believe that Bush said that no one anticipated the levies not holding. Even confronted with video of Bush saying those very words, he still insisted that video can be edited and he wanted to see a transcript. How does one fight that kind of partisan lunacy. I have come to the conclussion that you dont... If New Orleans in all of it's horror did not serve as a wake up call for these people, then nothing less than a catastrophic terrorist attack will. I am affraid that even with that, they will find a way to spin Bush out of responsibility for it. My conclussion is that they all suffer from a sense of guilt, that will not allow them to acknowledge their own culpability in a disaster that far exceeds the carnage of Katrina.

And the Spin Continues... (I discovered this piece from Wizbang as part of the same Daou Report.) I applaud Paul for acknowledging the obvious,

"Of course FEMA, and the idiot who runs it, are a different matter."

But the premise of the post, that Lefties are being unfair to Bush for being on vacation, is way off the mark. The Photo of Bush being briefed before the storm means nothing, if it took five days for his team to adequately address it. FEMA, Homeland Security... They were missing in action for days as people died, and this falls directly on Bush's doorstep. There is NO excuse for it. As for the contention that others shared the blame for what went wrong. I agree. Every politician from the local, state and Federal governments share blame in what was a failure of unimaginable proportions. What has happened since has been even more disgraceful. The lying and spin in particular. So Paul may feel comfortable excusing the failures of the Administration, after all, he survived... His brethren who didn't, or who lost people in the aftermath, may not be so generous.

And while the press is effectively shut out of reporting the real tragedy... There is THIS.

You angry yet???

What I truly DON'T understand, is how some Republican Appologist are trying to make Bush a victim in all this.... HELLO! The victims are the potentially thousands who have died.

Chris this is for you, and for my good buddy Boyd, and for the Boyz at Woozbang and everyone else out there who does not think we should be pointing fingers, or that the deaths of so many of those people who perrished in New Orleans, should not be put squarely on the doorstep of George W. Bush:

From The Situation Room, where Jack Cafferty continues to impress the hell out of me:

Wolf Blitzer: We'll continue to watch these pictures. Meantime, let's check in with CNN's Jack Cafferty. He's in New York and he's got another question for this hour. Jack?

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Indeed, I do, Wolf. Thanks very much. Somewhere along the way, FEMA became a dumping ground for the president's political cronies with little experience in disaster relief. The agency's first director was Joe Allbaugh, he was President Bush's 2000 campaign chairman. Allbaugh brought in the current failure, Michael Brown. His previous work was with Arabian horses. The number two guy, Brown's top deputy at FEMA is a fellow named Patrick Rhode. He worked for the 2000 election campaign. The number three guy at FEMA is Brooks Altshuler. He used to work in the White House. His job was planning presidential trips. And FEMA's long-term recovery director is a guy named Scott Morris. He produced television and radio commercials for the Bush campaign. The federal agency charged with handling national emergencies is staffed at the very top by a bunch of political hacks with virtually no experience that qualifies them to respond to something like Katrina. But I digress. Some people are now suggesting making the military responsible for organizing the efforts, things, in fact, picked up noticeably and considerably in New Orleans once they got there. So here's the question this hour. Should the military be put in charge of handling domestic disasters such as hurricanes?

BLITZER: You know, Jack, what happened in 1992 after Hurricane Andrew in Florida, the first President Bush was severely criticized for supposedly not doing enough for Floridians in the immediate aftermath of Andrew. And some pundits suggested later that he lost Florida to Bill Clinton in that election precisely because of that reason. You remember that?

CAFFERTY: I do. And I can remember a mayoral election in New York that turned on the fact that snowplows didn't get into some of the outlying neighborhoods soon enough after a particularly heavy snowstorm. And that mayor was promptly voted right out into the street, as it were. So the voters do remember. If the damage that's inflicted upon them is severe enough, they tend to remember. And when they go to the ballot box, sometimes they try to get even.

BLITZER: As we watch the vice president make his way, I believe, to microphones to report to us what he's seeing and what he's hearing, I just want to point out, there is some suggestions that this president learning from his father's mistake, wanted political associates of his to be in charge of FEMA to make sure the response would be perfect, especially to Floridians in the aftermath of hurricanes because that's where a lot of hurricanes sent.

CAFFERTY: Well, it didn't work out so well, did it?

BLITZER: Sometimes it doesn't necessarily work out that way.

CAFFERTY: Where are the qualifications of these people? None of these guys is qualified based on the stuff I'm reading to head up an emergency management agency. One of them worked with Arabian horses. The rest are all guys off the campaign trail, planned presidential trips, produced TV commercials. Don't you need somebody at the top running the organization that has some semblance of an idea of what the hell is required when there's an emergency?

BLITZER: All right, Jack. We got the point.

CAFFERTY: I got carried away.

So to all my Conservative Buddies out there, can anyone tell me why the President last week, in the middle of the carnage, had the stones to say that the FEMA Director was doing a good job? Anyone want to tell me why some of the most important positions in this country when it comes to taking care of our citizens is in the hands of rank amateurs. That is what I meant when I called the situation an embarrassment.

I welcome comments from anyone who wants to prove me wrong, but I will bet a case of Apples that not one has the courage to approach this subject.

This kind of says it all, doesnt it:

We have a man-child as President of the United States. That may seem an unfair characterization, but consider the President's performance last Friday when he ventured to the storm ravaged Gulf Coast. In a revealing moment, he referred to the FEMA Director as "Brownie" and joked about his past good times in New Orleans.

It was inappropriate behavior that one would expect from an adolescent and not the adult leader of the free world. It largely went unnoticed.

But perhaps the clearest demonstration of the President's arrested development is his inability to accept responsibility or accountability. Another revelatory moment was when the President pronounced that the response to Katrina was " not acceptable." Of course, he was the one in charge. It was as if a child passively proclaimed that "the milk was spilt".

In the age of video, it is "hard work," lying...

Yeah... Real Hard Work...

Anyone who can watch this video and still claim that this is all about Bush Hatred is... well... delusional at best.

Heads Up:

Sept. 7, 2005 -- The American Red Cross has asked the FBI to investigate at least 15 fake Web sites that are designed to look like legitimate Red Cross appeals for donations to Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.

"It's outrageous what they are doing to American citizens who are giving their hard-earned money to help people who desperately need their help," said Mary Elcano, the general counsel for the American Red Cross. "There's no question in my mind that these are the lowest of the low."

I knew it was only a matter of time before these dirtbags took advantage of the situation. I have actually been waiting for my first 419 letter on the subject. Anyway, take care to whom and how you donate.

Liberal Blogs for Hurricane Relief

"There's nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed by what's right with America."
Bill Clinton

Hurricane Katrina destroyed thousands of lives. Together, we're raising $1 million for the American Red Cross and prove that the liberal blogosphere can help our fellow citizens.

Please donate now

You can also get the advertisement on the Right for your blog, here. Please spread the word on this, and get your own ad to place on your blog.

Note: This post will remain at the Top of my blog for the next two weeks, or as long as is needed.

Michael from Comments from left field posted this list today. Lets keep these going:

No punditry today, instead I urge you please review the following links.

• Random Fate
• The Rogue Angel
• The Commissar
• Unpaid Punditry Corps
• Katrina Relief - What You Can Do
• The Skippy Challenge
  
• Wizbang Hurricane Relief Auction
• Liberal Blogs for Hurricane Relief
• Sticky Post - ISOU doing it's part for Hurricane Relief

If you are aware of any efforts to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina please leave a comment below with the details including any links. This is effectively an open thread with the sole purpose of collecting relief links, please contribute whatever you can. I will update this post with any links provided in the comments section.

.

Likewise, I will update the list if anyone posts comments here. This is a meme worth repeating on all our blogs, even if it helps raise $1, it is a dollar more than they had!

The Red Cross link for donations to help out hurricane victims....

Also, I will auction off any cartoon (the original artwork) on Zencomix and donate all proceeds to the Red Cross. If there is a cartoon you want, bid on it in the comments section at Zencomix. Minimum bid is $5