Click to watch:
On August 26, 2005, President Bush declared a “State of Emergency” in Louisiana. A day later he did the same for Mississippi. The hurricane hit on August 29, 2005, three days later.
continued below the fold
His declarations made Hurricane Katrina an “Incident of National Significance.” The National Response Plan (NRP) defines an Incident of National Significance as:
an actual or potential high-impact event that requires a coordinated and effective response by and appropriate combination of Federal, State, local, tribal, nongovernmental, and/or private-sector entities in order to save lives and minimize damage, and provide the basis for long-term community recovery and mitigation activities.
The critical point is here:
“ALL PRESIDENTIALLY DECLARED DISASTERS AND EMERGENCIES UNDER THE STAFFORD ACT ARE CONSIDERED INCIDENTS OF NATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE.” (NRP, 7)
Furthermore the NRP states:
When an incident or potential incident is of such severity, magnitude, and/or complexity that it is considered an Incident of National Significance, the Secretary of Homeland Security initiates actions to prepare for, respond to, and recover from the incident.” (NHP, 15)
And so from August 26th onward the President already had declared he was lead via the NRP mandate. Because in the plan, which is a security assurance given to every state in this Nation, it says the President will lead in Incidents of National Significance. It says the President will order the Secretary of Defense to deploy troops, without a request from the local officials. It says the President directs the Secretary of Homeland Security and leads him in responding “effectively” to disasters.
So if they really want to hang their collective hat on the notion that 2 days after Bush already declared the NRP into effect, where he was now responsible to lead the proactive response to do what needed to be done, that somehow he was begging the local and state authorities to declare an evacuation… well they are welcome to it, because we already know that for three full days prior to the storm hitting, Bush was in charge via the NRP, and he could have forced the evac two days prior if he wanted to since he was so “Johnny on the spot” and in control, and because of the NRP already being in effect, he already had every legal authority and was already the one responsible.
This is the real face of modern Republicanism and their starve the beast, shrink the government to a size you can drown it in a bathtub world-view.
A dog consumes the remains of a man near a breach in a levee in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Image: © Allen Fredrickson/Reuters/Corbis
Photographer: Allen Fredrickson
Date Photographed: September 6, 2005
Location Information: NEW ORLEANS, LA, United States
I don’t know what I can say… what can we do to make people realize what the cost of Republicanism really is?
Download the flash movie at the top of this diary and pass it along (or pass along the URL, www.wiseass.org/katrina.html)
to get this viewed by as many as you can.
Fantastic job! I’m off to forward it to friends and family.
I got the link on DKos and passed it on to several people. It is so evocative.
Too bad Laura Bush cannot see it or would not see it. Twice today she referred to the Hurricane as “Corinna” – “Corinna.” That means that she hasn’t been watching the news reports, so how deep is her interest and committment.
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Horrific documentary, no heroism is possible when the innocent suffer relentlessly, die and no relatives or family present to bury the victims of this crime.
Life’s End Marked “X”
IT’S LORD OF THE FLIES IN LOUISIANA
… it’s not human nature
R.I.P. May all these brave Americans meet their creator and rest in peace.
Their deaths demand accountability and Justice!
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You came over to Euro Trib last week, looking for help to verify a tape on a German TV about Bush’s charade…well, it looks like there is another tape, and it has been verified…so this is news that could be spread around, were you so interested:
http://yorkshire-ranter.blogspot.com/2005/09/other-german-tv-report.html
Has anyone sent that clip to the MSM? Olberman? Anderson Cooper. If sent along and ignored we need to buy air time to get it on every major and cable network. Calling Al Gore, Al Gore we need your tv station pronto!
OMG That is a very powerful clip.
I took the liberty of emailing your diary to Olbermann. Told him it was powerful stuff and he should show clip on the air. We shall see.
but I doubt it (or anything like it) would EVER get shown in television.
Oh, I know you’re right but we have to try now don’t we?