George W. Bush November 25, 2002 at WhiteHouse.gov: "With my signature, this act of Congress will create a new Department of Homeland Security, ensuring that our efforts to defend this country are comprehensive and united. The new department will analyze threats, will guard our borders and airports, protect our critical infrastructure, and coordinate the response of our nation for future emergencies."
September 1, 2005 at FoxNews.com: "This is a desperate SOS," New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said outside the New Orleans Convention Center, where corpses lay in the open and he and other evacuees complained that they were dropped off and given nothing ? no food, no water, no medicine."
For a trenchant analysis of the many warnings about the risk to New Orleans ignored by the Bush Administration since 2002, click here for Editor & Publisher.
Some blogs with current news from The Big Easy: Times-Picayune (city’s major newspaper), Metroblogging (most current), Gumbopages (somewhat current) Ernie the Attorney (regional posts).
Meanwhile, Rush Limbaugh tries to change the subject from Bush’s incompetence, and the drain on our resources caused by his war in Iraq, to racism, egged on by Slate, and David Brooks.
Re: blogs, this one from a Tulane student, blogging from Chattanooga now, is well worth a look:http://velvetrut.blogspot.com/
And this blog: http://mgno.com/“This journal has become the Survival of New Orleans blog. In less perilous times it was simply a blog for me to talk smack and chat with friends. Now this journal exists to share firsthand experience of the disaster and its aftermath with anyone interested.”
check out these quotes from Chertoff on NPR:http://delong.typepad.com/The exchange betweeen Seigal and Chertoff was amazingly revealing. It’s worth listening to.
I think you have the wrong George Bush signing the Homeland Security bill. George H. W. Bush was “41”; the current Chimpanzee-in-Chief is George W. Bush.
Fixed. Thanks.
Yeah, been thinking about the same thing. With about 4 billion $ per month going to the war in Iraq it seems incredible that such little support is heading to NO and surrounding areas. No emergency plan in place to deal with such an event. Suppose this had been a dirty bomb instead–or some other kind or major terrorist attack. Are there plans for any major population centers in the US to respond to such things? Looking at this I would say no. Where is homeland security?!