Everyone has to stop assuming Bush could never be impeached. If the US can’t impeach a prez who has screwed up in so many ways, resulting in many deaths, and torture, then the country surely is in trouble. How bad does it have to get before people start to feel they had the power to remove him? The crazy conservatives felt entitled enough that they felt they could remove Clinton based on his sex life. What’s missing from the left is that feeling of entitlement. Where is the press? Where is any strong democrat who feels empowered? Or would they all wait it out in the hopes of the next presidential election? Sorry but I don’t want to wait 3 more years. No telling how dubya could screw up in the interim.

The Bush investigation puts me in mind of OJ looking for the real killer.

Unlike using the federal troops for law-enforcement purposes or federalizing them in the absence of an insurrection, using private security guards isn’t against the law.

1970?

You may recall that in 1968, Ohio governor James Rhodes called in the National Guard to fend off student protesters and it was at Kent State that the Guard shot and killed 4 students. The President was not involved (with respect to nationalizing the guard). All this crap is cya to divert our attention from how the Bushevics eviscerated FEMA. Brownie didn’t have a clue how to manage. The Bushevics don’t believe in executing governmental functions. They don’t believe in oversight. Already, they’re seeing this as an opportunity to promote their pet policy options, like school vouchers. Bush has already suspended the Davis=Bacon Act to allow firms to pay sub-standard wages, also on the Republican wish list of regulatory changes. No doubt Brownie will soon show up as a contractor (after all his old buddy Joe Allspaugh, former FEMA director who installed him, is already working his angle in LA). We should all be out there on PA ave protesting.

We’re about to witness a sham investigation (just as occurred in FDR’s administration over the similar fuckup that resulted in the loss of WWII veterans in the Florida Keys in 1935). Hope Pelosi and Reid stand firm in not agreeing to participate.

The LA National Guard is under the Governor’s command; active-duty military (and Guardsmen from other states) are under federal command. They cannot work in the same area and both be armed.

Maybe a stupid question.
If that statement is true, then why are there no problems with private security companies working in the same area?

http://tinyurl.com/9ot44
NYT, September 8, 2005
“New Orleans Begins Confiscating Firearms as Water Recedes”
No civilians in New Orleans will be allowed to carry pistols, shotguns or other firearms, said P. Edwin Compass III, the superintendent of police. “Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons,” he said.

But that order apparently does not apply to hundreds of security guards hired by businesses and some wealthy individuals to protect property. The guards, employees of private security companies like Blackwater, openly carry M-16’s and other assault rifles. Mr. Compass said that he was aware of the private guards, but that the police had no plans to make them give up their weapons.

I assume the private security companies are definitely not in the official chain of command?

detlef, America has been having days of prayer for over 200 years. Let’s not talk about what Germany has done during the past 200 years.

Nice try!
Except that I didn´t wrote about the past 200 or even 60 years. (Not to mention that in the first 100 of these 200 years we didn´t do very much.)

If you want to have a day of prayer, fine!

But if I had been a foreign (European) tourist trapped in one of the New Orleans hotels, I certainly would have hoped that your authorities were able to “multi-task”. You know, praying and allowing every available help to come and help rescue and/or supply people.

Personally I wouldn´t have been comforted by a day of prayer while hearing at the same time that specialized foreign search and rescue teams were left waiting just outside the US border.

Detlef, you’ve mentioned that you’re not a native English speaker, but since China has given up, let me ask, one last time, whether you understand that he is claiming that Nagin and his associates actively planned not to rescue the poor of New Orleans and that everything went according to plan?

and Uncle Kvetch wrote:

As for the broader point, and specifically China’s observation: the idea that ignoring the poor was the plan (rather than a failure of the plan) doesn’t sound the least bit exaggerated when we consider statements like these:

Well, that´s not my opinion. Once again:
My impression from the last two weeks is that nobody, neither local, state and federal authorities were willing to spend the time, effort and resources needed to evacuate everyone from New Orleans.

However I don´t think that anyone had a “plan” to actively ignore/drown the poor. I rather think that everyone was simply hoping for the “best”. “Best” in this case means that a worst case scenario wouldn´t happen during his/her watch.
Why include “evil intentions” when simple laziness, total disregard for the poor, short-term satidfaction/solutions, don´t want to spend money on “them” and “cover my *ss” mentality can explain it as well?

If I were asked who is to blame?
10% local authorities, 45% state authorities and 45% federal authorities. With a slight tilt to place even more blame on the federal authorities.

Why is everything about numbers around Bush always so damned “surpising”?

What we needed were professionals reporting to elected officials who could enact legislation authorizing and paying for needed improvements and preparations.

What we got were social networks- pols upon pols upon pols, all depending on organizations larded with political hacks. For the past four years professionals have been leaving our government in droves.

And with the example of Huey Long before them, it’s understandable that none of the pols were willing to fall on their swords for better levees, evacuation plans for the poor, etc. Sure, that kind of thing might be popular with the voters, part of a healthy democracy and so forth- that, and $2, will get you a cup of coffee.

Maybe we need to take another look at how much value we really find in social networking.

Given that the government was doing everything in its power to keep the press out of NO and away from the recovery efforts (an effort they just abandoned , apparently), I’m inclined to treat official sources with a certain healthy skepticism.

As bloated corpses went floating on the flood, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice went shopping Fifth Avenue for a small fortune in shoes. Asked later her thoughts on the victims from her kindred South, the Secretary offered with her usual authority, “The Lord Jesus Christ is going to come on time. If we just wait.”

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0907-20.htm