***The Investigation Has Officially Begun!!!***

SENATORS COLLINS AND LIEBERMAN LAUNCH OVERSIGHT INVESTIGATION OF HURRICANE RELIEF EFFORTS, EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS

WASHINGTON, DC-- Senators Susan Collins and Joseph Lieberman, Chairman and Ranking Member, respectively, of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, announced today that their Committee will conduct an oversight investigation of the preparation for, and response to Hurricane Katrina. The initial focus of the oversight investigation will be to ensure that the federal government is doing all it can to help the victims of this terrible tragedy. Senators Collins and Lieberman will hold hearings on the problems with preparedness and response to the hurricane and other natural and man-made disasters once emergency efforts have brought the situation under adequate control.

The Senators have scheduled an initial briefing by DHS officials for Committee Members and Senators from affected states on Wednesday, September 7th at 10:00 a.m. The briefing will be closed to the media, but the Senators will schedule a press availability after the briefing.

Senators Collins and Lieberman, both of whom have had ongoing discussions with DHS and FEMA officials since Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, have released this statement:

“We are saddened and horrified by the pain, suffering, and human tragedy caused by the worst natural disaster in American history. Rescuers and relief workers are dealing with 90,000 square miles in the Gulf Coast of flooding and total devastation. Entire communities have been destroyed, families have lost loved ones and been torn apart, and the economy has been brought to its knees.

“As the Chairman and Ranking Member of the committee with jurisdiction over FEMA, it is our duty to ensure that the Executive Branch has all the resources and authorities it needs to coordinate and respond to this catastrophe. We will work with FEMA and other agencies to identify what additional support and resources they might need during this terrible time.

“It is also our responsibility to investigate the lack of preparedness and inadequate response to this terrible storm. While it is too early to reach conclusions on the response of government to this catastrophe, it is increasingly clear that serious shortcomings in preparedness and response have hampered relief efforts at a critical time.

“As President Bush made clear yesterday, the federal government’s priorities must be these: first, save lives; second, sustain lives by ensuring the necessary supplies of food, water, shelter, and medical supplies; and third, execute a comprehensive recovery effort.

“It is critical that we in the Senate do everything in our power to strengthen the federal government’s response, and that we thoroughly examine what appears to be breakdowns in preparedness for and responses to disasters, without interfering with efforts that are currently underway. We intend to demand answers as to how this immense failure occurred, but our immediate focus must and will be on what Congress can do to help the rescue and emergency operations that are ongoing.”

Oh God, I hope his nose won't turn Brown.

If he enters the fray I may go green.

Well, if it does, I'll start bombarding him with emails. I'm one of his constituents.

Lieberman has never blamed Bush or any of the GOP for anything, I really wonder if he is going to take this investigation seriously. :mad:

don't forget he has family who were Holocaust survivors. Maybe this week's tragedy struck a nerve in him.

nothing to investigate. we watched it happen. it has been recorded for everyone to see. it is impeachment time. it is time to go to trial for crimes against humanity.

With the Red Cross posting on their website that they were told to stay out of NO, the defense rests your honor.

So they can work out a deal? Sorry, I don't buy anything that comes out of a private meeting anymore.

*sigh*

Closed door meetings -- I smell a white wash.

no matter what.

Sorry -- just don't have confidence in that DINO.

Best news so far today.

I wish them both the best of luck. and I hope they stick it to the bastards.

coverup/whitewash. Do not be so naive as to think it will be anything else.

sw

He needs to go too.

But right now, until more Dems step up, it's the only thing we've got.

especially those with absolutely NO experience in areas they are appointed to. We have a lot of political hacks and rich cronies in high places that just do not have any business setting and implementing policies which are crucial to the nation.

Glad they are looking into the negligent homicide of hundreds, possibly thousands from the inaction of bush* and his imbecile appointees.

Time to clean DC. It has become flooded with toxic elements too.

is closer to reality.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Two key U.S. senators said on Friday they will launch a bipartisan coverup of what they described as an "immense, but probably unavoidable failure" of the government response to Hurricane Katrina.

Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who heads the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the panel's other top-ranking Republican, said they hope to shift as much blame as possible to lower-ranking officials and career federal employees -- ideally at an obscure government agency that few Americans have ever heard of.

"In keeping with recent congressional practice, we will try to shield the president and the senior members of his administration from directly responsibility for this fiasco, although a few token resignations may be required this time around," the pair said in a joint statement. "Our primary focus, however, will be on figuring out how to throw billions of dollars in additional funding to the very same agencies that failed so spectacularly this past week."

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist expressed his own support for a cover up, saying it would follow in the "proud footsteps" of Congress's refusal to hold anyone accountable for the failure to stop the 9/11 attacks, the completely inadequate investigation into the Abu Ghraib torture abuses, and the Senate Intelligence Committtee's whitewash of administration efforts to cook the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Speaker of the House Denny Hastert declined to comment on the hurricane or the proposed Senate investigation, other than to make a loud "BRRRRRRRR" sound while pushing a toy bulldozer across a map of New Orleans.

http://billmon.org/archives/002124.html

We covered this story last night in the Political Forum. This investagation is B.S. link here...... http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2057428&mesg_id=2057428

Media minus the crap. It so rare and refreshing.

We are all witnesses to the gross transgressions.

We don't need a phony cover-up bullshit go-nowhere solve-nothing investigation by self-serving United States Senators.

Whatever faith I still had in government vanished this week.

I may as well rip up my voter registration card.

I would rather it were other senators doing this, not them.

Investigations subcommittee of the Senate Committee for Homeland Security, it's their turf.

What we all should do to make sure that it amounts to something, is to contact our senators and demand a FULL investigation.

Still, it's obvious that they can't hide from it completely, and that's a start.

after the investigation.

Their witnesses will be the hurricane victims and all the reporters that were out there filming all of this.

REAL investigation gets off the ground.

"Homeland Security" is a fucking farce. This "investigation" will be designed to prop up the farce, count on it.

sw

http://hsgac.senate.gov/index.cfm?Fuseaction=About.Membership

R's
Collins
Stevens
Voinovich
Coleman
Coburn
Chafee
Bennett
Domenici
Warner

Dems
Lieberman
Levin
Akaka
Carper
Dayton
Lautenberg
Pryor

has done in the last 5 years. Now in 7 days they have one going? Congress isn't even back yet. What's an "oversight investigation"? Is this a real investigation or another white wash crap?

The same fucker kisses the pResident
& goes along with 99.99% of his policies

I think I hear him now

"the president is doing a remarkable job under the circumstances"

"You go rubber stamp Joe"

I got the committees switched. Carl Levin is the ranking Dem on the Investigations Subcommittee!

Here are the rest.

Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
199 Senate Russell Building, Washington, DC 20510

Republican Democrat
Norm Coleman Chairman (R-MN) Carl Levin Ranking Member (D-MI)

Ted Stevens (R-AK) Daniel K. Akaka (D-HI)

Tom Coburn (R-OK) Thomas R. Carper (D-DE)

Lincoln D. Chafee (R-RI) Mark Dayton (D-MN)

Robert F. Bennett (R-UT) Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ)

Pete V. Domenici (R-NM) Mark Pryor (D-AR)

John W. Warner (R-VA)

Levin's office will be getting a phone call from me, ASAP. I've always had a lot of respect for him. I was a little disappointed to see that he was on this embarassment of a committee in the first place, but now I think he may be helpful. He's also on the Oversight of Government Management Subcommittee.

Carl Levin
http://levin.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm

Went through the evacuation procedures and overall attitude towards the evacuation from the DHS on down to the NO City Government. It's not pretty...

Do you know that in 2003 the DHS spent over 4 billion dollars for so-called "disaster preparedness" in the nation's major cities? And they didn't require local governments to spend ONE DIME of it on developing an evacuation plan.

It's true, our government truly doesn't give a shit about us. A million of us are less important than a waste treatment center...

it's "out of sight, out of mind".

...complete government fuck-up isn't going to go away so quickly.

This is a scar on the history of America, not your average goof.

don't hold water.

Or even Levin! They are the ones who should be screaming, this is their department! And Harry Reid does good but he only goes to papers like Boston herald....He needs to be on TV.

This is to setup Nagin and Landrieu. No two ways about it!! :grr:

poor black people.

The term "whitewash" seems so appropriate right about now...

in the White House. All blame is placed on local and state officials.

Just to save everyone from following the "investigation."

...will be found when everybody saw Bush, DHS and FEMA running around like the fucking three stooges...

If this was the end of it, I'd agree, but there's a nightmare that's waiting in that water...

Did Katrina suck all you people's brains out?

...INVESTIGATION!!!

They're in a tough spot because there's going to be uproar when that water is drained and I doubt that they'll want to implicate themselves in a coverup. They're just trying to save their own asses right now considering the head the committee for the DHS, which didn't contribute a fucking thing to the "preparedness" of that city. They're at fault too, and they know it.

Seriously? I can't wait to find out what comes out of this investigation.

find his ass with both hands much less the "truth" about something that points to *.

I strongly suggest you take it.