Chill out, bro. The President has told us that he's going to build Trent Lott
another house and then go sit on his front porch. Ain't that good enough for
you??

  
Remarks by President Bush During Briefing on Hurricane Katrina
Friday September 2, 2:36 pm ET
WASHINGTON, Sept. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- The following are remarks by President
Bush during a briefing on Hurricane Katrina:
    Mobile Regional Airport
    Mobile, Alabama

    10:35 A.M. CDT

THE PRESIDENT: Well, first I want to say a few things. I am incredibly proud
of our Coast Guard. We have got courageous people risking their lives to save
life. And I want to thank the commanders and I want to thank the troops over
there for representing the best of America.
I want to congratulate the governors for being leaders. You didn't ask for
this, when you swore in, but you're doing a heck of a job. And the federal
government's job is big, and it's massive, and we're going to do it. Where it's not
working right, we're going to make it right. Where it is working right, we're
going to duplicate it elsewhere. We have a responsibility, at the federal
level, to help save life, and that's the primary focus right now. Every life is
precious, and so we're going to spend a lot of time saving lives, whether it be
in New Orleans or on the coast of Mississippi.
We have a responsibility to help clean up this mess, and I want to thank the
Congress for acting as quickly as you did. Step one is to appropriate $10.5
billion. But I've got to warn everybody, that's just the beginning. That's a
small down payment for the cost of this effort. But to help the good folks here,
we need to do it.
We are going to restore order in the city of New Orleans, and we're going to
help supplement the efforts of the Mississippi Guard and others to restore
order in parts of Mississippi. And I want to thank you for your strong statement
of zero tolerance. The people of this country expect there to be law and
order, and we're going to work hard to get it. In order to make sure there's less
violence, we've got to get food to people. And that's a primary mission, is to
get food to people. And there's a lot of food moving. And now the -- it's one
thing to get it moving to a station, it's the next thing to get it in the
hands of the people, and that's where we're going to spend a lot of time focusing.
We've got a lot of rebuilding to do. First, we're going to save lives and
stabilize the situation. And then we're going to help these communities rebuild.
The good news is -- and it's hard for some to see it now -- that out of this
chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the
rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to
be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch.
(Laughter.)

In a message dated 9/2/2005 9:42:11 PM Eastern Standard Time,
herons@ucwp... writes:
Predictable.  Fire up the Rove  brigade and follow the republican mantra.
Say it early, say it often and say it loud.  Blame everything on the
democrats.  So what if it is an act of god.  So what if it is a republican
administration that sat back and ignored all signs of an impending disaster.
So what if FEMA can't find a road map to the south even with Mapquest.  Just
keep saying it often enough and maybe people will stop asking why W and his
HomeLand cronies weren't interested in an actual homeland catastrophe until
desperate people in horrendous situations started making it on the national
news begging for water and pictures of dead bodies in wheelchairs made it on
the front pages of the papers.

But then this is the administration ( with Sentoram's help) that wants to
sell off the National Weather Service so that corporate America in the form
of Acuweather can profit from (or maybe withhold) data essential for
predicting and tracking severe storms.  This is the administration that is
more interested in rewarding it's friends (can you say rich political
contributors?) with personal and corporate tax cuts while maintenance on
bridges and levies is deferred because of budget cuts.  This is the
administration that has manipulated, altered and flat out falsified any
national scientific report, that documents the increasing damage to the
country and to the planet of unchecked pollution and the global warming that
it causes.  And it is the administration that is counting in maintaining
it's power by keeping the population off balance with it's Orwellian
scripted threat from the outside with the War on Terror.  The same WOT
inflamed by this government's fabrication of Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction, nonexistent biological and nuclear weapons and fictitious Ben
Laden, Sadam ties.

Just what was FEMA doing for the week Katrina sat in the gulf soaking up
water and energy?  It crossed into the gulf a category one and well before
Monday was a category four heading to five.  Why, suddenly, when the
administration and agency were coming under increasing criticism for its
lack of response do we see today for the first time caravans of National
Guard vehicles entering the city?

Yes, there should be investigations into the dismal federal response to this
tragedy.  And FEMA and it's criminally, non-existent response should be the
first to go under the microscope.

C J Kelly
47th St


Ross Bender
http://rossbender.org