Brown says White House wanted him to lie

WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) -- The ousted head of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency says the White House wanted him to lie about the response to Hurricane Katrina.

Former Director Michael Brown told ABC News` 'This Week with George Stephanopoulos' Sunday he stood by comments in a Playboy interview, and President Bush wanted him to take the heat for the bungling.

'The lie was that we were ready and that everything was working as a team. Behind the scenes, it wasn`t working at all,' Brown said. 'There were political considerations going into all the discussions. There was the fact that New Orleans did not evacuate and the mayor (Ray Nagin) had no plan.'

Brown said it was natural to 'want to put the spin on that things are working the way they`re supposed to do. And behind the scenes, they`re not. Again, my biggest mistake was just not leveling with the American public and saying, `Folks, this isn`t working.`'>>>>snips

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/northamerica/article_1195176.php/Brown_says_White_House_wanted_him_to_lie

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Let him stay as chancellor, he might even be prime minister some day!

Who is the most well known rival for Prime Minister Blair's position within the Labor Party.

This article is about Bush-appointed FEMA director, Michael Brown.

It irritates me every time I hear people misuse the term "sour grapes". I blame the Republicans since they're are the ones that popularized the misuse. Apparently they're too culturally illiterate to have heard Aesop's fable about the fox and grapes.

blames a Democrat, Ray Nagin??

was coming, and was crying for help is the one they blame.

figures.

I don't know how he sleeps at night after watching Spike's film.

I guess he can always remember this...

"it is very important that time is allowed for Mr. Brown to eat dinner," she writes. "Given that Baton Rogue is back to normal, restaurants are getting busy. He needs much more 20 or 30 minutes."

Wednesday, August 31: Much of New Orleans is underwater when a FEMA official inside the Superdome sends an urgent BlackBerry message to his boss, director Michael Brown:

"...the situation is past critical... hotels are kicking people out, thousands gathering in the streets with no food or water... estimates are many will die within hours," writes Marty Bahamonde, who was sent to be Brown's eyes and ears within the city.

Bahamonde expressed his frustration about the "dinner e-mail," responding:

"OH MY GOD!!!!! Just tell her that I just ate an MRE and in the hallway of the Superdome along with 30,000 other close friends, so I understand her concern about busy restaurants."

Originally a big business Repub, he registered as a Dem because a Repub could never get elected in NOLA. But now that he has a D after his name, he is fair game to Republicans.

I do not understand why the Dems can not get someone else to run agains Nagin. But, hey, its New Orleans, is a hard town to figure out, politicaly.

Lt. Governor Mitch Landrieu (brother of Sen. Mary Landrieu) made it to a run-off with Nagin, but lost. There were at least 9 other candidates in the race.

I wish he would just drop da bomb.

The fact that Bush appointed him, and complimented him on the job he was doing, says enough about the White House -- especially after a year of inaction ...

to the Bu*h administration can tell about their own situation.

The whole shebang is just one twisted up pack of lies.

people would be held accountable. So far, only "Heck of a job" Brownie has taken the blame. I feel that Busholini and all the Feds in charge of Disaster Mgmt. should be charged with Criminal Negligence.

They will need to talk to their accountant on where to put their extra money and stock options.

"heckuva job." And those who are the most miserable of miserable failures supersede any dumb ol' medal. They get rock-solid job security and maybe even (as in contradicta) a promotion or two.

Whitman, Sandra Day O'Connor and now this guy, Brown. Where were they when opening up their yaps could have made difference?
Too little too late. It is all meaningless now.

If anything it just shows what cowards they are for not saying something sooner..and standing up for something when it would have actually meant something instead of just spouting empty words way after the fact.

you notice how much information is coming out as part of lucrative book deal, they have a duty
as public servants to promote the General Welfare; allowing the American people to die from
neglect is a gross dereliction of duty on their part.

It still makes them look like they were Grossly Negligent at the time they were SUPPOSED to be doing their job!!!

would this be proof enough? Hmmm....

I am sure that there's many factual differences between their statements now and what
was heard during the various investigations that have gone on. Like in 2003, nobody talked
to Novak. Now I would not be surprised to hear that Uncle Scrooge, Donald Duck and Huey,
Dewey and Louey all talked to Novak about Plame.

Was expecting the usual repuke graft and monetary payoff for a "job well done" - bur bushco reniged on it.

And this is by no means a stretch of the imagination here...

I'd like to think their would have been a more competent response if the coup would have never taken place. Perhaps we would have never heard of Michael Brown.

I have no doubt BushCo told him to take the heat. What I don't get is why he would sacrifice hundreds of lives to do it. If he felt so troubled by Bush's suggestion, he was in a place to stand up for the people of NOLA, expose Bush as a fraud, and maybe get things done. Instead, he collaborated with Bush. Now he wants to uncollaborate. I didn't think he could go down further in my opinion, but he just did.

As for claiming Nagin did not evacuate and had no plan, that's a bald-face lie. There were over a million people in the New Orleans region, and 900,000 got out. Many who stayed did so voluntarily. The evacuation went much smoother than what happened in Houston with Rita. New Orleans had a plan, it worked rather well (though not perfectly), and they developed new plans after the hurricane hit--plans that were interrupted and broken up by the feds, who kept making promises and not following through with them.

Sorry, Brownie, you were one of the bad guys, not one of the victims. And your lies are giving way to self-delusion.

If memory serves, there was s huge disagreement between Gov Blanco and the WH.

The WH wanted to declare Martial Law throughout LA have the local and state police totally stand down.
The governor flatly refused.

The argument escalated to the point the WH threatened to withhold sending in troops to help evacuate
the thousands in distress if in fact the Governor stood fast to her decision and refused to relinquish control of the state over to the Federal Government. This I believe to be the REAL donnybrook and an issue that needs to be investigated. For Brown, as a distant after thought, to suddenly have pangs of conscience at this late date is so contrived and not to be believed is an utterly disingenuous attempt to coverup the real chronological series of events.

I believe the WH had their own plan of what they were going to do after Martial Law was declared. Like seize the coastline for offshore oil and gas drilling because they created an opportunity to take all the land they wanted under "Eminent Domain" Laws.

IOW, If the Governor would have given in, as bad as it is now, the outcome would have been much worse because land ownership by private citizens would be non existent today.

Remember when Bush said: "Brownie, you did a heck of a good job"? That was the first layer of the coverup- Bush did his photo-op with his arm around Brown acting as if this mess is going to be taken care of right away. People were still in deep distress, asking: "where is FEMA?"...

Bush used Brown as the reason for the delay (scapegoat) but were applying heavy pressure to Blance who as days passed was under fire from all sides. Bush tried his hardest to force Blanco's hand, hoping she would cave in and give the feds what they wanted, Martial Law aka Supreme Control of LA!

An investigative journalist needs to hear all this from Blanco, herself. Speak to her and disseminate facts about what happened with the WH and herself to set the record straight once and for all.

that reports of "marauding gangs" turned out to be hyperbole designed to excuse the use of force against the desperate.

to clarify the goings on between her office and the US government before and the aftermath of Katrina.

My next query is....why has she kept silent?

Bush did want to sieze full control, and Blanco refused, and I do believe that's why Bush stood back, expecting people to blame Blanco for the delays. Only when he realized it was backfiring did he get involved. After that, I don't believe it was about revenge or punishing Blanco, I believe Bush saw a chance to prove his privatization theories and to funnel a lot of cash to his buddies. When that began to fail, too, he started blaming Brown, and that's why Brown is turning on him now. But Brown can't admit he was part of a plan to let people die to punish Blanco, so he's still lying.

As for Bush trying to sieze the coastline, there'd be no reason for that. The federal government pays no revenues to the state for the oil drilled offshore--all of those revenues already go to the federal government. Plus, even the SCOTUS wouldn't back him on a permanent grab like that. I think his reasons were more subtle. If he were in charge of the full evacuation and recovery, he could funnel even more money to his buddies, claiming privatization. In addition, he could be seen as a take-charge president, get all the glory and political clout for himself. When Blanco refused, he held back on the assistance to punish her.

Most of that isn't speculation. The WP investigated the meetings and discussions held before Katrina came ashore. There's no question Bush was trying to declare, effectively, martial law. There's no question Blanco refused. Blanco herself has publicly said that Bush delayed assistance because she refused to allow him to use the whole affair as a publicity stunt for himself. So there isn't much speculation on what was attempted, and on what Bush did deliberately. The question of why is speculation, and the question of how much of the delay was deliberate and how much incompetence is speculation. But Bush's attempt at a power grab and his consequential delay to hurt Blanco's public image is not.

That's a side of the story not told enough.

"I do believe that's why Bush stood back, expecting people to blame Blanco for the delays. Only when he realized it was backfiring did he get involved. After that, I don't believe it was about revenge or punishing Blanco,I believe Bush saw a chance to prove his privatization theories and to funnel a lot of cash to his buddies."

ending with:

"When Blanco refused, he held back on the assistance to punish her."


Privatization is not a theory, the government does it all the time. Halliburton is the prime example of privatization, nothing theoretical about that. You also mention in the above statement, you don't believe Bush tried to punish Blanco. If holding someone hostage by virtue of power, whether by internal or external forces, to extort a requested result isn't punishment; I don't know what "IS"? Undue influence exerted by a government over another government (the state) during a crisis, when the lives of millions of people are at stake is at the very least, Treason.


"As for Bush trying to seize the coastline, there'd be no reason for that. The federal government pays no revenues to the state for the oil drilled offshore--all of those revenues already go to the federal government. Plus, even the SCOTUS wouldn't back him on a permanent grab like that."

Of course there would be a reason to seize the coastline. Bush would be handing out contracts so fast to special interest (homies) for oil exploration to previously denied off shore access by state and local authorities because of his power of eminent domain. Using the Energy Dept as the government entity deciding it is in the country's best interest to alleviate our dependence on foreign oil. And believe me this would be done in perpetuity. The Louisiana coastline and all it's inhabitants (those along the bayous are the poorest of the poor) would have lost their homes and their rights forever to the land in the aftermath of Katrina because Bush would have had those oil rigs in place within days, just like he did when he invaded Iraq. (The first order given the troops during the initial Iraqi invasion was: "secure the oil fields". Of course Hussein set them all on fire...but the "Mission Accomplished" statement was Bushes hooray for extinguishing the oil fires and finally having full control of the oil pipelines.) As far as the SCOTUS is concerned. They are a Federalist leaning entity. They support commerce and business first and foremost..match Big Oil congloms against a poor citizen whose lost his home during the hurricane going to court trying to get back what was rightfully his in the first place.

Nope, Blanco has a story to tell. Just wish I knew why the zipped lip.

As I said, I think Bush was trying to punish Blanco in the early stages by not doing anything. After that backfired and everyone blamed Bush, Bush got involved. After he got involved, as I said, it was no longer about punishing Blanco. His failures after that were caused by his attempts to try out his theories on privatization.

Yes, obviously privatization already infects much of government--I'm in Texas, you don't have to explain that to me. But the neocon ideology is that most government functions should be privatized. Not just rescue and recovery after a disaster, but education, public utilities, flood control, levee building, you name it. BushCo saw the destruction of New Orleans as an opportunity to put this neocon dream into action--privatize all aspects of the aftermath of Katrina. This is why corporate donations were turned away from New Orleans. This is why the offer of buses from Greyhound to evacuate the SuperDome were turned down. This is why everything fell apart. BushCo and Fema--whose leader was chosen because he, too, was an advocate of privatization--wanted to prove to the world that the most effective way to run government was to privatize it, to allow the "competitive free-market" to treat government duties as opportunities to make a profit. THis group believes that private industry is the most effective means of running a government. That's the theory they were trying out--not to test it, but to prove to the country that it was the most effective form of government. It ties in with Grover Norquist's comment about shrinking government to the size where you could drown it in the bathtub.

When these ideals failed completely in New Orleans, BushCo began trying to blame the locals and the Dems for the failure. Hence the call to find cases where environmentalists may have impeded levee building (something they found no example of). They had, and have, to blame the locals, or they have to admit that privatization failed.

As for siezing the coastline, one of us misunderstands the situation, and I'm not sure which it is. I know of no real restrictions on drilling off the Louisiana coast, and the government already owns the land off the Coast, anyway. It's considered federal land. In every other state, when an oil company drills on federal land, the oil company pays revenues to the federal government, and the feds give the state a percentage of those revenues--either 50%, or, in the case of Texas, 100%. In Louisiana, the feds keep all the oil revenues. So Louisiana foots the bill for the damages and maintenance of the infrastructure and the ecology caused by the oil industry, but they don't get any revenues back. That's one reason Lousiana is so broke. So with my understanding, Bush would have no need to sieze anything along southern Louisiana--he already owns it. You are saying something different, I take it, but I don't have whatever knowledge you do of what he wants, so please explain.

I think Bush's ideas on privatization are the real reason he wanted to sieze power in Louisiana. I think that's far more lucrative in the long run for Bush and his buddies than simply grabbing some oil resources. Bush wants to turn the government over to the corporations. Think of the boondoggle--corps get all the business of the government, they get (they believe) to lower taxes and reap income at the same time. Instead of paying taxes, people would pay corporations (through state and local taxation) for all their needs, and given the complete deregulation of corps today, that means they could set their own prices. Neocons who buy into this idea believe this destroys the federal government, allows state governments to make decisions on prayer and teaching evolution and segregating schools, and lowers their taxes. People who look at it more realistically understand it is just a form of feudalism.

And Blanco hasn't kept her lip zipped on this. She has said that Bush threatened her, that Bush manipulated his response time to hurt her public image and help his. She's admitted, as have people in the Bush administration, that Bush tried to sieze power from her. She hasn't been silent, but there's only so much she knows about what Bush was doing, and the media, ie the PR firm for the Republican Party, has not chosen to report it.

If Bush wanted to sieze the land along the coastline by emminent domain, he could do that without declaring martial law. One of the proposals on the table now for flood control is to build a levee along the entire Louisiana coastline. He could sieze the land for that, in the courts. He didn't need martial law for that, he needed martial law so he could force his own plans on New Orleans. Also, think about it, the more destroyed New Orleans was, the more he could rebuild as he wanted--that's another reason he stepped back and let it die, and it's also why he's not following through on his promises to help rebuild.

Here you say:

"In Louisiana, the feds keep all the oil revenues. So Louisiana foots the bill for the damages and maintenance of the infrastructure and the ecology caused by the oil industry, but they don't get any revenues back. That's one reason Louisiana is so broke. So with my understanding, Bush would have no need to seize anything along southern Louisiana--he already owns it. You are saying something different, I take it, but I don't have whatever knowledge you do of what he wants, so please explain.

Bush or the US Government doesn't own the land. The oil companies have lease contracts in which they share the Royaltys from oil profits with the gov and do not share them with the state.

Here is an article stating the oil companies new proposal dated this past March 06':

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-03-19-offshore-drilling_x.htm

Much more money is at stake in offshore drilling.

Oil and gas leases in the portion of the Gulf where drilling is allowed brought in $5.7 billion for the federal government in 2005. Blanco wants states to get half of the royalties and says Louisiana should get 54% of that cut in the Gulf. Under that formula, Louisiana could receive as much as $1.5 billion a year for a state with an $18.5 billion annual budget.

Never before has there been such a flurry of legislative activity on the issue," says Adam Sharp, spokesman for Sen. Mary Landrieu of the Gulf Coast state of Louisiana.

The proposal is simple.

• States that open their territory to drilling will get a cut of the royalties that currently go 100% to the federal government.

• A specified chunk of royalties must be spent restoring coastlines.

Simple, and hard to resist.


Louisiana Demands More of Offshore Oil Revenues

by Greg Allen

Morning Edition, February 14, 2006 ·

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco is threatening to block future offshore oil leases unless her state begins getting a bigger share of taxes from oil and gas drilling in the Gulf. Blanco says the money is needed to help restore coastal areas damaged in part by oil and gas development.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5205346

Now, if Governor Blanco would have relinquished her state's power to the US government by allowing Bush to declare Marshall Law after Katrina. The proposals set forth by the lobbyists for oil companies as stated above would not even be a consideration. WHY? Because Bush would have been in control, not Blanco and not the State of Louisiana. Bush wouldn't have needed anyone's approval...As I said before, He would have rolled in the Dept of Energy and used their bureaucracy to complete the job of commandeering the state's rights of bargaining power literally cutting them out of any future royaltys or any say on environmental concerns.

Offshore drilling between 3 and 200 miles off the coast is considered federal land, which is how the federal government sells the leases to the oil companies in the first place. The oil companies pay revenues to the federal government for the leases, and the federal government decides how to pay them to the state. Here's something on it--I couldn't find anything more clear. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4200/is_20040301/ai_n10174650

Again, I don't see what Bush's attempt to sieze control of the police and National Guard for disaster clean-up affects these offshore operations. You first said something about siezing land through emminent domain, but seem to have abandoned that. This is federal land--as I said, Bush (meaning the federal government) owns it. They don't have to sieze lands. They don't have to use the Department of Energy to weaken Louisiana's bargaining power. This is all done at the federal level in the first place. The Department of the Interior leases the drilling rights, and the US government gets the revenues. All moratoriums on drilling, all environmental restrictions, and all revenues paid to the state are decided by Congress. I don't see how Bush having complete control over the police and National Guard for disaster clean up is going to change that. It would have given Bush great leeway in his attempts to privatize disaster relief and to rebuild New Orleans as he saw fit, but I am not seeing the connection you are making to the offshore drilling rights. The feds already own that, they have no reason to sieze it. Bush can just screw Louisiana through Congress, the way every oter president has done.

If I'm missing something, spell it out.

Always were..You are a bit confused between the difference.

An excerpt from the article you posted:

"While the first three miles off Louisiana's coast belong to the state, the area beyond the three-mile zone is considered federal property. The zone between three and six miles is known as the 8(g) zone, as designated by the 1953 federal Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act."


Again..Had Blanco relinquished the state's powers to the Federal Government. The proposal currently under consideration for oil leases, as I mentioned in my last post, would be non existent today if the governor of Louisiana had caved in to Bush's demand to take control and declare the state of Louisiana under Martial Law. Your link, above quote, clearly states, "the first three miles off Louisiana's coast belong to the state." Had Martial Law been in effect...all decisions about oil leases would have come from the Federal Level...cutting the state out of any negotiatng power with whoever THEY chose to do business with, and possibly ending any future hopes of receiving revenues from oil leases.

BTW, @ 5pm edt today,your buddy Nagin is standing for an interview on abc tv. Don't miss it!

However, it's no lie. Nagin was incompetent too.

New Orleans didn't really have a great plan in place and even that wasn't followed. Nagin waited too long, didn't use his resources (like school buses to get out people that didn't have cars), wasn't able to deal with the Governor, state, or federal officials effectively.

There is enough blame to go around on everyone for that cluster-fuck.

New Orleans has had evacuation plans in place for many decades. These plans are examined and tinkered with every year as population grows and changes. They were tinkered with just before Katrina, as Hurricane Cindy came ashore and exposed a few weaknesses. The plans aren't just for New Orleans, either, they are for the entire Greater New Orleans area, and for the entire coastline--Nagin is only in charge of part of that. New Orleans comprises only about 400,000 people, but the GNO is about 1.3 million, comprising several cities (Metarie, Kennar, Gretna) on both sides of the river. Nagin is only over part of that area. In addition, all the coastline below and to the east of New Orleans, and the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, all are part of the evacuation plans.

The plans call for a layered evacuation, and they were triggered the Friday before Katrina. The coastal areas evacuate first, then ten hours later the regions around NOLA evacuate, then ten hours after that, ideally 30 hours before predicted landfall, NOLA itself evacuates. The plans are designed to prevent the type of gridlock we saw with the Houston "evacuation" (There was no real evacuation plan for Houston, the mayor just yelled "Everybody RUN!"). It worked spectacularly.

Nagin's side of the evacuation went very smoothly, especially considering it was the first time a mandatory evacuation had ever been ordered in New Orleans. He didn't wait until the last minute, he informed the citizens at every stage what the plans were, and when the evacuation would be ordered. He announced Saturday afternoon that he was advising people to evacuate, and said that the evacuation would become mandatory on Sunday morning--the soonest the plan would allow him to call a mandatory evacuation. He set up evacuation centers for people who had no means to evacuate, and he set up storm shelters for people who couldn't evacuate. He did underestimate how many people would use the shelters, I think, but the shelters were there.

On the school bus myth--there were enough school buses to get maybe 20K people out, if he could get them all to a central location where they could load the school buses (more difficult than it sounds). They couldn't take luggage or pets or food--the buses weren't big enough. And once beyond the city limits, the school buses were out of his control, since he was only mayor of New Orleans. Once outside of the city, he could not tell them where to go and he could not set up shelters for them to go to. As I understand it, he doesn't even have legal authority to order the buses to leave the city limits, or to tell people where to go outside the city limits. That was a lot of energy, risk, and expense to evacuate a small fraction of the city's population to someplace he couldn't predict. Instead, Nagin spent his resources on setting up storm shelters--a decision which probably saved tens of thousands of lives, since he had the means to protect not just the 20K people he might have gotten out on those buses (assuming they all ran and he could find fuel for them--they weren't designed for long distance), but the sixty thousand or so he got to the shelters. He did run buses through the neighborhoods to help people get to the shelters.

The evacuation was very successful. A metro area of 1.3 million people was flooded over 80% of its area, and only 1500 or so died. 80% or more of the city had evacuated, and many of those who remained didn't want to evacuate. That's better than Houston's evacuation.

Nagin made mistakes--everyone makes mistakes. But he did a damn good job before the hurricane, and if you watched him the day of and the days after the hurricane, you know he was on top of it the whole time. His only failure was trusting the feds. I can't count the number of times he announced that FEMA or HSD had promised to do something, or started to do something, only to find out they had broken their promise. They left him holding the bag. If FEMA had followed through on their promises to Nagin, or if Nagin had had the resources he was promised and should have had, he would have looked like a genius. But the Feds broke promise after promise playing their little games, and hundreds more people died because of it.

:eyes:

I heard of stories of people who wre dropeed at the bridges and then held at gunpoint in the blistering sun... the accounts said it was racial profiling.....

He had a really long segment on the bridge incident. Very well documented, and very infuriating. No one is being held accountable, and the police/sheriff depts involved are all hiding behind the blue shield.

I did hear the story being read by Mike Malloy yesterday after I wrote the above post...

Good on AC.... thats responsible journalism.

The only way the school buses could have been used would have been for a) military or law enforcement personnel to commandeer the buses and to be assigned as drivers (the regular school bus drivers were probably already evacuating as they were ordered, plus they don't have the skills or authority to command people to leave pets and belongings behind), b) government officials designating a place for the buses to GO - they can't just aimlessly drive around - their range isn't that far on a tank of gas. Unless the buses are commandeered, the school district retains the liability should something happen during the trip - remember the fire on the bus in Houston? Considering the financial condition of NO public schools, I doubt they're interested in that type of lawsuit.

Every time I hear that bus thing, I'm reminded of the ignorance of people when it comes to logistics.

Are we still playing the Blame Game?

achieved ANYWHERE in history.

Period.

basically nothing else works anymore...

well, this has about as much credibility as a cheap suit...

that won't go away.

that doesn't alleviate his responsibility. His biggest mistake was not "leveling" with the public? That's one of the most arrogant things he's said in all of this bs. No, his biggest mistake was not doing the job he was paid to do. It's all about public appearances with these asshat BushCo spin doctors.

Your government is not prepared for you. If you are anywhere within striking distance of a hurricane you should start considering your options and how you'll plan through with them should a hurricane hit.

If the federal government is not going to maintain the infrastructure or help its people, then why are we paying for it. Maybe we should have a little check list when we go do our taxes, as to where we want our money spent-cause I think they're wasting our money every chance they get!!! I'm not getting my money's worth.

It's funny, the more he tells the truth, the more I like this guy.

my biggest mistake was just not leveling with the American public and saying, `Folks, this isn`t working.`'>>>>snips

Your biggest mistake was not acting to rescue immediately! IF the Press could get in their you could have too. You could have air dropped survival instructions and bottles water within hours. This was negligence on a Federal level.BushCo should be gone for this alone.

right? right? *crickets* *crickets*

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Why are they allowing the lies? Why so much cowardliness on the Republican Congress? Where is the oversight?

If a democrat yells from the basement of Congress (cause all the upstairs rooms are full) and the media doesn't report it, does the democrat make any noise?

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Some more than others. Some louder than others. I agree that they should have been shouting from the rooftops from the beginning. As they did speak out they were labeled "cowards" and "fringe" and "unpatriotic" and "supporting the terrorists." And the public, unfortunately, supported this kind of rhetoric.

They are becoming louder in their dissent of late.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

there's real criticism for some democrats, but there's also a lot of real voices speaking up. but our corporate media is wholly controlled by 5 corporations and voices opposing the rise of fascism are verbotten. the only thing you'll hear from those democrats you mentioned are the gaffs and follies to make democrats look bad, nothing more. but you should already know this...

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

if anything can be silenced or spun to help the owner, it will. if that means walking us straight into a fascist state, so be it. if *I* owned those media outlets and had the same evil goals it wouldn't matter if Hillary, Kerry, Dean, et al were doing a hunger strike surrounded by puppies on fire in the middle of The Mall of America, i'll walk right over them, edit them out of the news and dwell on the latest missing white woman du jour. you are giving too much power and responsibility to the essentially powerless (they are politicians, not media owners -- that's it, just politicians). and if you do watch C-SPAN then you must obviously agree with me, because you would have heard Hillary, Kerry, Dean, et al speak on various issues which get wholly glossed over if not outright silenced by the media. and if we agree, which i do, that C-SPAN is relatively irrelevant to popular opinion, then it comes completely back to the powerlessness of those who do not have ownership of media. it's not cowardice, it's abusive media propaganda and conditioning. don't buy into the RW talking points that democrats have no ideas, they do, and you know they do since you insinuate that you watch C-SPAN. so the only logical answer left is media conditioning -- so defy the brainwashing and encourage others to do so as well. that's all there is.

It took the Religious Right and neocons three or four decades to upset the Democratic throne in the Congress. They didn't start screaming from the rafters in huge numbers until well AFTER they won the Senate and the House. The RR and neocons spend decades building up their networks of power brokers, religious leaders, lobbyists, right-wing talk radio, etc.

The way they talk about Democrats now, they would not have done 14 years ago.

There are two responses possible to constant repetition on a subject: either is becomes perceived as the truth, a la "Saddam ordered the 9/11 attack", or it becomes an irritating drone the public tunes out.

I don't know. Sometimes it just seems that everybody figures that BushCo has the government so tightly in it's grasp that nothing matters. Nothing sticks. And when it does, the people it stick to simply ingnore public opinion. Bush has such a solid view of how this country MUST go to save it from the sins of socialism and secularism he will NOT move from it, even when proven wrong.

If the country cannot right it's government, then I fear we are lost as a nation. That when the finance, petrodollar, and nation debt bubbles pop, we will be ruined for decades to come, unable to remember to how manufacture things ourselves and unable to afford to import them anymore.

We can right outselves, but we need to remove both Bush and Cheney from office. At once, and at the same time. The Constitution provides for it, the line of succesion is intact, and we as a nation are strong enough to withstand it. Perhaps that is what this generation needs. Another historic moment where things that are wrong are turned right.

People remember where they were when Nazi Germany surrendered. When Imperial Japan surrendered. When Kennedy was shot. When Challenger blew up. When the WTC was hit.

We need something good, something historic to happen, something that reaffirms faith in the system of government. Something to unify us.

That's what the pretzeldent's new Gulf Coast coordinator Don Powell said on "This Week."

:grr: "businesslike way" = way that's best for business not residents. :grr:

He's only saying it now because after lying for the administration, they left him dangling in the breeze. He certainly isn't doing it for moral/ethical reasons because if he had any morals/ethics he would have refused to lie and gone public a year ago.

cold shoulder from the GOP as well.

that this guy and all involved... Bush, Chertoff, Nagin, Blanco, etc were totally incompetent.

My expectations of what the federal govt's response should be in the first week of a disaster like this are probably about 10% of what most people here's would be and they didn't even come close to meeting mine.

...and genocide on a grand scale. What will it take to impeach this idiot??

by idiots and allowed to freely roam the air waves, pick'n and fart'n.

people stranded on the freeway!!! NOLA evacuated over 80 percent of their population which was unprecedented for a city that size. This was a major power play between state and federal-I believe this administration was into punishing anyone going against them. They could care less how many died in NOLA, it's all political-a bunch of damn sociopaths!!!!! Five days without water, five days of pleading, screaming, begging for help. Remember Blanco wrote the letter, requesting aid before the Hurricane hit! This is where my tax money should be going, building US infrastructures, helping American people, not some bogus war or gifts of money to *'s buddies!!!!! I blame the federal government, more than anyone-to reiterate 80 per cent evacuation is a high percentage for evacuation.

I don't really see the connection between the lie that the administration and we the public told outselves (we're ready, we can handle disasters, etc) and "the administration wants Brown to lie."

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060827-021802-1523r

How do I tell my 8-year-old son that the White House lied?

Oh, whoa is me...whoa is me. :handwringing:

:sarcasm:
It's past time to impeach the wuckfad!

Question: "Which business? Who's business?" If we rebuild in the way that Dubya ran HIS businesses, we are SCREWED big time!

Iraq, Social Security, Medicare Part D, oil profits,, etc. etc.

It is obvious that anyone who would put him in such a position is a putz, but Brown, if he had any ethics would have declined the position.

a sure sign.

That guy with NASA that Bushie tried to shut up about global warming. Bush will listen to people that don't want to be listened to, and silence people that want to talk. So much for freedom.

since the GOP is giving her the cold shoulder