BUSH DENIES RACE WAS A FACTOR

[Guest ONYX]

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Bush Tours Hurricane-Ravaged Areas
By JENNIFER LOVEN, AP

NEW ORLEANS (Sept. 12) - President Bush denied Monday there was any racial component to people being left behind after Hurricane Katrina, despite suggestions from some critics that the response would have been quicker if so many of the victims hadn't been poor and black.

"The storm didn't discriminate and neither will the recovery effort," Bush said. "The rescue efforts were comprehensive. The recovery will be comprehensive."

Bush made the remarks to reporters beneath a highway overpass at the end of a tour that took him through several flooded New Orleans neighborhoods. Occasionally, Bush had to duck to avoid low-hanging electrical wires and branches.

It was Bush's first exposure to the on-the-ground leadership of his new hurricane relief chief. The federal response to the disaster has been roundly criticized as sluggish and inept.

In a sign that Bush is growing weary of the accusations, he testily replied to a reporter who asked whether he felt let down by federal officials on the ground.

"Look, there will be plenty of time to play the blame game," he said. "That's what you're trying to do. You're trying to say somebody is at fault. And, look, I want to know. I want to know exactly what went on and how it went on, and we'll continually assess inside my administration."

He also sharply rejected suggestions that the nation's military was stretched too thinly with the war in Iraq to deal with the Gulf Coast devastation. "We've got plenty of troops to do both," the president said. "It is preposterous to claim that the engagement in Iraq meant there weren't enough troops."

Bush said Congress should consider whether the federal government should have more authority to step into disaster areas without a request from the states. He said lawmakers should examine what happened and make recommendations for change so the government can prepare for future disasters, including the possibility of a biological attack.

"We need to make sure that this country is knitted up as well as it can be in order to deal with significant problems and disasters," Bush said. "Meantime, we've got to keep moving forward. And I know there has been a lot of second-guessing. I can assure you I'm not interested in that. What I'm interested in is solving problems. And there'll be time to take a step back and to take a sober look at what went right, what didn't go right."

Bush also clarified his now-criticized remark that no one had anticipated the levees being breached. He said he was referring to that "sense of relaxation in a critical moment" when many people initially thought the storm had not inflicted heavy damage on the city.

Meanwhile, in Washington, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it is suspending its emergency airlifts of hurricane victims to distant states as it reassess the needs of the storm victims.

"The big evacuation is over," spokeswoman Kathy Cable said. She said more than 22,000 evacuees had been relocated in less than 72 hours.

People who need to get to their families in a distant location will be sent on commercial flights, Cable said.

Bush, on a two-day visit to hurricane-affected areas, started the day with a briefing on the federal response effort aboard the 844-foot USS Iwo Jima, a command center for military operations. The slideshow presentation, which covered the latest relief and recovery efforts in three states, was conducted in the ship's ward room by Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen, who replaced embattled FEMA Director Michael Brown as federal hurricane commander last Friday.

Bush was seated between New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco - both of whom have been critical of the federal response in Hurricane Katrina's wake.

Bush then toured the flooded city in a convoy of military trucks. Later, he was to tour hard-hit surrounding parishes by helicopter, touching down to meet with local leaders, and then was traveling to Gulfport, Miss.

It was Bush's first up-close look in the two weeks since Katrina smashed into the Gulf Coast and drowned this storied city. He had visited on ground last week in Mississippi and at the New Orleans airport and had made two previous airborne inspection tours. Although he stopped at the New Orleans airport and went to the site of one of the breached levees on the edge of the city, Bush had stayed far from the epicenter of the city's suffering.

The president spent Sunday night aboard the Iwo Jima, a military amphibious assault ship docked in the Mississippi River just behind the city's convention center - now eerily empty but still strewn with piles of trash - that was the scene of so much misery in the days after the storm.

The trip came as the White House is eager to show the president displaying hands-on, empathetic leadership in the storm effort. More than half of respondents in an Associated Press-Ipsos poll last week said he is at fault for the slow response.

The city's devastation is immense, but the situation has improved markedly in the last week. Law and order has been restored to New Orleans and looting curtailed; the Superdome and city convention center are empty; the water level is going down as workers begin to drain the city; and some power is being restored.

Democrats have not been shy about seizing on the discontent with Bush's performance.

"Sadly, the federal government's lack of preparation followed by its inept response had deadly consequences for far too many Americans in Katrina's path," party Chairman Howard Dean said.

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said it is unfortunate that the White House has undertaken a "full-court press" to deflect blame for the poor early response to the storm away from the Bush administration and onto state and local officials.

AP-ES-09-12-05 1340EDT

[b]
Wow, this hurricane stuff is really stressing the President out. Poor George[/b]

[NateDawg]

race had [b]NOTHING[/b] to do with it, i believe it had to do with these people being poor

[Guest BlackJesus]

[img]http://cagle.msnbc.com/working/050907/crowe.gif[/img]

[Guest BlackJesus]

[img]http://cagle.msnbc.com/working/050908/petar.gif[/img]

[Guest BlackJesus]

[img]http://cagle.msnbc.com/working/050908/davies.gif[/img]

[STRAYCAT]

yeah yeah he and chaney had a machine to whip up katrina,and wreck the big easy..2 people to blame...the mayor who is a punk like Carl Pickens,the govonor
who is a dumb crying bitch.

[Guest BlackJesus]

[img]http://www.bushflash.com/jpg/ko5.jpg[/img]

[The Scales]

Dubya ain't goin nowhere till his time is up...all this impeachment mumbo jumbo is bull cockey.

Bush always gets that cocky, testy, tone when someone questions his auth or a tay!

You know why?

Because Dubya ain't goin nowhere till his time is up...all this impeachment mumbo jumbo is bull cockey.


Now go drink your beers, smoke your weeds, watch your football, have your sex, buy your gizmos, play your xboxes, download your porn, burn your movies, pay your taxes, line your Bush pockets, read your romance novels, check to see if you've been moistening your self, sniff your fingers, hell do anything but think about the slow bush ass fuck we 've all been getting since Ver 2.0 took office.



Bush aint rasict he just like white people betters all...

[Guest ONYX]

Polls show racial divide on storm response.


[url="http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20050913/pl_usatoday/pollshowsracialdivideonstormres"]http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20050913/...ivideonstormres[/url]

[eskimo]

I dont really think there is any race but here is a video that says so poor and so black.

[url="http://poststuff4.entensity.net/091205/media.php?media=soblack.wmv"]http://poststuff4.entensity.net/091205/med...dia=soblack.wmv[/url]

[|Bunghole|]

I deny race was a factor, too. And so do many others. Utter nonsense, and infuriating. The mayor of New Orleans is ignorant, had NO plan in place to cope with such a disaster, and the Governor of Louisiana is a twit.
The state of Louisiana is the most staunchly democrat, poorest and most politically corrupt state in our country.
The federal response was "slow" because government is slow. You cannot simply move federal help into a disaster area immediately. How can you get ground vehicles into an area that's ten or more feet underwater? How long does it take to mobilize enough boats to do the job? Do any of you people think before you simply point a finger of blame without even knowing what the fuck you're talking about?
Furthermore, many are not aware that the federal government CANNOT arbitrarily commit military troops into a situation like this WITHOUT the permission of the Governor of the state! And SHE REFUSED BUSH'S RECCOMMENDATION TO ALERT NATIONAL GUARD TROOPS IMMEDIATELY AND ONLY ACTIVATED HER OWN STATE'S NATIONAL GUARD WHEN IT WAS TOO LATE!
Quit blaming everything on race, or Bush, or both. The people there were poor and uneducated, and the governments of New Orleans and Louisiana failed them, NOT the federal response! In fact, the federal response was FASTER than it was for Hurricane Andrew!
Smoke that....

[Jamie_B]

[quote name='Bunghole' date='Sep 13 2005, 09:35 PM']I deny race was a factor, too.  And so do many others.  Utter nonsense, and infuriating.  The mayor of New Orleans is ignorant, had NO plan in place to cope with such a disaster, and the Governor of Louisiana is a twit.
The state of Louisiana is the most staunchly democrat, poorest and most politically corrupt state in our country.
The federal response was "slow" because government is slow.  You cannot simply move federal help into a disaster area immediately. How can you get ground vehicles into an area that's ten or more feet underwater?  How long does it take to mobilize enough boats to do the job?  Do any of you people think before you simply point a finger of blame without even knowing what the fuck you're talking about?
[b]Furthermore, many are not aware that the federal government CANNOT arbitrarily commit military troops into a situation like this WITHOUT the permission of the Governor of the state! [/b] And SHE REFUSED BUSH'S RECCOMMENDATION TO ALERT NATIONAL GUARD TROOPS IMMEDIATELY AND ONLY ACTIVATED HER OWN STATE'S NATIONAL GUARD WHEN IT WAS TOO LATE!
Quit blaming everything on race, or Bush, or both.  The people there were poor and uneducated, and the governments of New Orleans and Louisiana failed them, NOT the federal response!  In fact, the federal response was FASTER than it was for Hurricane Andrew!
Smoke that....
[right][post="148457"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]


Oh Im aware of that, I do work for the Army National Guard and Army Reserves remember? Doing what? Mobilization. [img]http://forum.go-bengals.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/3.gif[/img] (Granted it's for war, not emegerency relief)

[|Bunghole|]

[quote name='Jamie_B' date='Sep 13 2005, 07:45 PM']Oh Im aware of that, I do work for the Army National Guard and Army Reserves remember? Doing what? Mobilization.  [img]http://forum.go-bengals.com/public/style_emoticons//3.gif[/img]   (Granted it's for war, not emegerency relief)
[right][post="148466"][/post][/right][/quote]
Oh, I figured you'd know of that....

[STRAYCAT]

You can't have the guard,food etc waiting for the storm to hit,it would have gotten wiped out. And the one thing that disturbs me is the jackass's shooting at the rescuers. Can't wait to see what will happen with all the cash being sent in to the most corrupt city.

[Guest BlackJesus]

[img]http://www.newsfrombabylon.com/images/articles/01-2003/dumb_americans.gif[/img]

[img]http://forum.go-bengals.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/24.gif[/img] [img]http://forum.go-bengals.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/24.gif[/img] [img]http://forum.go-bengals.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/24.gif[/img]

[Guest ONYX]

[img]http://forum.go-bengals.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/24.gif[/img] [img]http://forum.go-bengals.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/24.gif[/img] [img]http://forum.go-bengals.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/24.gif[/img] [img]http://forum.go-bengals.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/24.gif[/img] [img]http://forum.go-bengals.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/24.gif[/img] [img]http://forum.go-bengals.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/24.gif[/img]

[Guest bengalrick]

i would say that it is the weak people that have changed their views on him, b/c things aren't "rosey" enough for them, or they didn't get their way... but since bush doesn't have to worry about any more elections, i'm sure he doesn't care too awfully much... shit, he never really cared in the first place...

bj will say that he smartened up and started hating bush.... you now know how i feel about that...

[Beaker]

I think race was a HUGE problem. Didnt you guys see all those relief checks with "for whites only" written in the memo lines? *heavy sarcasm*

[Guest ONYX]

September 11th, 2005 4:01 pm
'Racist' police blocked bridge and forced evacuees back at gunpoint


By Andrew Buncombe / The Independent

A Louisiana police chief has admitted that he ordered his officers to block a bridge over the Mississippi river and force escaping evacuees back into the chaos and danger of New Orleans. Witnesses said the officers fired their guns above the heads of the terrified people to drive them back and "protect" their own suburbs.

Two paramedics who were attending a conference in the city and then stayed to help those affected by the hurricane, said the officers told them they did not want their community "becoming another New Orleans".

The desperate evacuees were forced to trudge back into the city they had just left. "It was a real eye-opener," Larry Bradshaw, 49, a paramedic from San Francisco, told The Independent on Sunday. "I believe it was racism. It was callousness, it was cruelty."

Mr Bradshaw said the police blocked off the road on the Thursday and Friday after Hurricane Katrina struck on Monday 29 August. He and his wife Lorrie Slonsky, also a paramedic, had sheltered with others in the Hotel Monteleone in the French Quarter.

When food and water ran out they were forced to head for the city's convention centre, but on the way they heard reports of the chaos and violence that was taking place there and inside the Superdome where thousands of people were forced together without running water, toilets, electricity or air conditioning. So Mr Bradshaw spoke with a senior New Orleans police officer who instructed them to cross the Crescent City Connection bridge to Jefferson Parish, where he promised they would find buses waiting to evacuate them.

They were in the middle of a group of up to 800 people - overwhelmingly black - walking across the bridge when they heard shots and saw people running. "We had been hearing shooting for days. What was different about this was that it was close by," he said.

Making their way towards the crest of the bridge they saw a chain of armed police officers blocking the route. When they asked about the buses they were told their was no such arrangement and that the route was being blocked to avoid their parish becoming "another New Orleans". They identified the police as officers from the city of Gretna.

The following day Mr Bradshaw said they tried again to cross and directly witnessed police shooting over the heads of a middle-aged white couple who were also turned back. Eventually, late on Friday evening, the couple succeeded in crossing the bridge with the intervention of a contact in the local fire department.

Arthur Lawson, chief of the Gretna police department, said he had not yet questioned his officers as to whether they fired their guns.

He confirmed that his officers, along with those from Jefferson Parish and the Crescent City Connection police force, sealed the bridge and refused to let people pass. This was despite the fact that local media were informing people that the bridge was one of the few safe evacuation routes from the city.

Gretna is a predominantly white suburban town of around 18,000 inhabitants. In the aftermath of Katrina, three quarters of the inhabitants still had electricity and running water. But, Chief Lawson told UPI news agency: "There was no food, water or shelter in Gretna City. We did not have the wherewithal to deal with these people. If we had opened the bridge our city would have looked like New Orleans does now - looted, burned and pillaged."

Mr Bradshaw and his wife were evacuated to Texas and have since returned to California. They condemned the authorities, adding: "This official treatment was in sharp contrast to the warm, heartfelt reception given to us by ordinary Texans.

"Throughout, the official relief effort was callous, inept and racist... Lives were lost that did not need to be lost."

[Guest CTBengalsFan]

were people surprised Bush denied race was a factor or something? what were you expecting, "No I wasn't gonna hurry up for any black people"???