Blanco denies rift with Bush

[sabra]

http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/wfaa/katrina/stories/wfaa050905_mo_katrinamain.2b69de5a.html

Blanco denies rift with Bush

....

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco has refused to sign over National Guard control to the federal government and has turned to a Clinton administration official, former Federal Emergency Management Agency chief James Lee Witt, to help run relief efforts.

Blanco, a Democrat, was not informed of the timing of Bush's visit, nor was she immediately invited to meet him or travel with him. In fact, Blanco's office didn't know when Bush was coming until told by reporters.

Late Monday, Blanco denied there tension with Bush.

"We'd like to stop the voices out there trying to create a divide. There is no divide. We're all in this together," she said. "Every leader in this nation wants to see this problem solved."

[Old and In the Way]

1. She's a class act. Sorry you can't say the same for this administration.

I imagine she's got lots on her mind right now and there's not much point in picking fights with this administration. I hope her fellow Democrats in Congress have her back.

[Trevelyan]

11. THIS IN MAINSTEAM MEDIA TODAY,

AOL MAIN PAGE, THEIR FEED IS USUALLY AP.

http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20050905091809990022&ncid=NW

S00010000000001

Far from deferring to state or local officials, FEMA asserted its authority and made things worse, Mr. Broussard complained on "Meet the Press."...

When Wal-Mart sent three trailer trucks loaded with water, FEMA officials turned them away, he said. Agency workers prevented the Coast Guard from delivering 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel, and on Saturday they cut the parish's emergency communications line, leading the sheriff to restore it and post armed guards to protect it from FEMA, Mr. Broussard said.

One sign of the continuing battle over who was in charge was Governor Blanco's refusal to sign an agreement proposed by the White House to share control of National Guard forces with the federal authorities.

~~~~~~"If one person criticizes them, or says one more thing, including thepresident of the United States, he will hear from me. One more word about it... and I
-- I might likely have to punch him."
-- Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., on ABC's 'This Week' defends sheriff's department.

"They've had press conferences. I'm sick of the press conferences. For God's sakes, shut up and send us somebody."
-- Aaron Broussard Jefferson Parish president pleads for help on NBC's 'Meet the Press' Sunday.

~~~~Considering the dire circumstances that we have in New Orleans -- virtually a city that has been destroyed -- things are going relatively well."
-- FEMA Director Michael Brown in CNN interview Thursday, Sept. 1

"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."
-- President Bush praises Brown during visit to Alabama Friday

~~~But furious state and local officials insisted that the real problem was that the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which Mr. Chertoff's department oversees, failed to deliver urgently needed help and, through incomprehensible red tape, even thwarted others' efforts to help. :evilfrown: :evilfrown:

"We wanted soldiers, helicopters, food and water," said Denise Bottcher, press secretary for Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana. "They wanted to negotiate an organizational chart."

Mayor C. Ray Nagin of New Orleans expressed similar frustrations. "We're still fighting over authority," he told reporters on Saturday. "A bunch of people are the
boss. The state and federal government are doing a two-step dance."

THIS WAS A LONG ARTICLE AND MUCH MORE ON THE CONTINUING OBSTRUCTION OF RELIEF EFFORTS. The older quotes from Meet the Press, etc. were in a sidebar.

We need to keep an eye on this!!!

[Lone_Star_Dem]

15. The online poll was encouraging

Who is ultimately responsible for the disaster response?
Federal officials 59%
State officials 23%
Local officials 19%
Total Votes: 214,381

It is looking like they may have made a mistake trying to pin this on the state and local officials. The people aren't buying it and it cast bush in the roll of being petty and uncaring.

This was their great plan to cover his ass? A few cheesy photo ops and some asinine staged testimonials of how great he was in a crisis. Then off to blaming the locals to get the heat off of him.

This was so lame that I'm even hearing how blatantly obvious it was from local republicans.

[Dunvegan]

19. Just got through to leave a message of support for the Black Caucus

The number is 1-888-355-3588.

Next call...White House. Then Congresspeople. Then Reps....etc.

[NRaleighLiberal]

2. She's good - she's letting her actions speak, and therefore not

able to have her words Roved....

[Imagevision]

3. That's cool, we can read between the lines...!

[NorthernSpy]

4. it pains me to see people defend that woman

Just as Bush failed to do his duty in protecting the people who depended upon the levees, Blanco did nothing to make sure that an adequate evacuation plan was ready to go in time for hurricane season. Together, they left the poor to drown. I'd like to see them both in jail.

SCREW Blanco! That (D) after her name doesn't mean shit to me -- not with rats and crows picking at the corpses of the people she left to die.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

21. Where was she going to evacuate them TO...it is clear that from

Saturday night, it was FEMA's responsibility

[despairing optimist]

5. What's Blanco's story, Louisianans? I won't express an opinion

because I don't know her. But I wonder why the Superdome and the convention center didn't have canned food, bottled water, cots, diapers, and other supplies for at least a couple of days if Blanco and Nagin knew they were going to be the shelters of last resort.

Answer that question, please. If it's been answered somewhere on DU, I can't find the thread with Level 3 restrictions.

[belle]

7. Whatever her faults, at least she's human. And besides, the buck stops

with Bush. he wanted to be king of everything, well, he got it. *His* war, *his* decision to "starve the beast," *his* folding FEMA into the inept Department of Duct Tape, *his* self-promoting photo ops, *his* need to control everything. He broke it, he bought it.

[Trevelyan]

12. Who is jamming communications in New Orleans?

http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/

~September 5, 2005 -- Bush back on the Gulf Coast today in his role as Slim Witless, the yodeling moron.

-----September 2, 2005 -- Who is jamming communications in New Orleans? Ham radio operators are reporting that communications in and around New Orleans are being jammed. In addition, perplexed ham radio operators who were enlisted by the Federal government in 911 are not being used for hurricane Katrina Federal relief efforts. There is some misinformation circulating on the web that the jamming is the
result of solar flares. Ham radio operators report that the flares are not the source of the communications jamming. If anyone at the National Security Agency is aware of the source of the jamming, from direction finding or satellite intelligence, please discretely contact me at [e-mail] (from a private or temporary
email account).

In this case, the Bush administration cannot hide behind national
security and it is the duty of every patriotic American to report such criminal activity to the press. Even though the information on the jamming may be considered classified -- it is in the public interest to disclose it. Also, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is reporting that no aircraft over New Orleans have been fired
on over New Orleans or anywhere else in the area. Are the reports of shots being fired at aircraft an attempt by the Bush administration to purposely delay the arrival of relief to the city's homeless and dying poor? The neocons have turned New Orleans into Baghdad on the Mississippi.


New Orleans: Who is jamming communications and why?

UPDATE: We can now report that the jamming of New Orleans' communications is emanating from a pirate radio station in the Caribbean. The noise is continuous and it is jamming frequencies, including emergency high frequency (HF) radios, in the New Orleans area. The radio frequency jammers were heard last night, stopped for a while, and are active again today. The Pentagon must locate the positions of these transmitters and order the Air Force to bomb them immediately.

However, we now have a new unconfirmed report that the culprit may be the Pentagon itself. The emitter is an IF (Intermediate Frequency) jammer that is operating south southwest of New Orleans on board a U.S. Navy ship, according to an anonymous source. The jamming is cross-spectrum and interfering with superheterodyne receiver components, including the emergency radios being used in New Orleans relief efforts. The jammed frequencies are:

72.0MHZ (high end of Channel 4 WWL TV New Orleans)

45.0MHZ (fixed mobile)

10.245MHZ (fixed mobile)

10.240 Mhz (fixed mobile)

11.340 Mhz (aeronautical mobile)

233 MHZ (fixed mobile)

455 IF (jammer)

A former DoD source says the U.S. Army uses a portable jammer, known as WORLOCK, in Iraq and this jammer may be similar to the one that is jamming the emergency frequencies.

UPDATE Sep. 3 -- A Vancouver, British Columbia Urban Search & Rescue Team deployed to New Orleans reported that their satellite phones were not working and they had to obtain other satellite phones to keep in touch with their headquarters and other emergency agencies in British Columbia.

There is a report on a ham radio web site that jamming is adversely affecting the New Orleans emergency net on 14.265 Mhz.

If a U.S. Navy ship is, in fact, jamming New Orleans communications, the crew must immediately shut down the jammer and take action against the Commanding Officer.

[snot]

6. I read somewhere there WAS a detailed evac. plan--

but locals didn't have the resources to implement it.

I've asked elsewhere and ask again, what EXACTLY is it that Blanco and/or Nagin did wrong--and if you've got any back-up for that, pls provide link or whatever.

It seems clear the Fed failures/deliberate f--k-ups are mainly to blame; but the best defense against lies is the TRUTH.

[OKDem08]

8. her comment "locked and loaded"

still gives me chills

[Trevelyan]

9. I remember reading Nagin's heart-rending begging for help and

stating again and again to the reporters questions, that New Orleans and Louisiana JUST DID NOT HAVE THE RESOURCES. I believe a disproportionate number of the Guard from Louisiana are in Iraq and I wonder if that is deliberate with their starving funds for the Levee repair and other necessary things.

I don't think we should forget Nagin's heart-wrenching anger that when it might have been possible to seal the levee, the New Orleans people were waiting with the sandbags BUT THE HELIOCOPTER PROMISED NEVER SHOWED UP.

That promised but never showed up is repeated many times throughout this tragedy by Broward by so many people falsely imprisoned or alternately locked out of the Dome of the promises and then nothing.

Same with the purported accepting of aid esp. doctors from Cuba, CNN front page has a video of Castro that Bush never got back to him.

Same with Canada with planes loaded with supplies and their excellently trained relief workers ready to board the plane and then at the last minute being denied access to American airspace. Prime Minister Paul Martin was livid and said he was going to ask bush the next day why he was sacrificing lives.

Same with the UN offeres of help and Europeans on standby to bring help immediately, bush told them HE'D GET BACK TO THEM.


The lies about the Red Cross being on the scene when they were never allowed in for bogus reasons. Someone should start a 911 type chart on hour by hour day by day of this agony and the obstruction of relief workers.

The military was ready to go but in an interview with BBC the US soldier said they were ready to go with meals and water but they couldn't leave without Presidential authority and the order NEVER CAME.

There was a big deal of boats and heliocopters in pictures coming at the viewer on AOL news, help is on the way but it took days after that photo op for them to arrive. The open letter from a soldier said they are trained to get to the scene immediately and kept calling bush's excuses BULLSHIT.

Don't forget what happened and what still may be happening. Who REALLY caused all those chemical explosions to increase the terror of resident of NO and those watching, given the other evidence of wanting people to die in massive numbers.

[Trevelyan]

10. Please visit Conyers Blog and leave a message of encouragement

Bushco is still very dangerous and vindictive to anyone who criticizes their take over the world plan and atrocities.

I read on Daily Kos someone who had contacted the Black Caucus to thank them for their telling truth to power recently on CNN who cut away, she mentioned Jesse Jackson, Jr. and 3 others and said there may have been more speaking out and Barbara Lee did start the Resolution of Inquiry on afterdowningsteet.org the preliminary to Impeachment.

The poster on Daily Kos asked people to please, please, please call or write members of the Black Caucus for speaking up to this illegitimate Power and obviously they are suffering from organized racist and threatening calls constantly and she was told by several of the staffers that there had been only one or two positive calls and that the rest were so horrible some of the staffers were near tears.

Please call or email or write your thanks to them. They really need US TO KEEP THEIR BACK in this dangerous time. It isn't enough to make fun of these dangerous people from the safety of keyboards, at least use your keyboards to contact them and show your support.

Thank you.

[iconoclastic cat]

13. Could you give the link to that dKos post? I can't find it. Thanks.

[bliss_eternal]

14. kicking for link...

please...

[iconoclastic cat]

16. I still can't find that thread!

Dammit.

[psychopomp]

20. kick

I would like to see that thread, also.

[OneGrassRoot]

17. Looking for info on Blanco, too!

I've tried searching the LA official website but can't find docs stating EXACTLY HOW SHE UTILIZED THE NG - PRE AND POST KATRINA.

Had a RW ask why she didn't order LA NG to do airlifts or food drops to the people in NO. I know 5000 of her troops are in Iraq, maybe on their way home now, but what did she order for the troops in LA currently?

Thanks in advance

[Bridget Burke]

24. Try searching news sources.

Instead of asking your RW pals.

[sam sarrha]

18. was she wearing a BLUE dress..check for evidence..!!

[Justitia]

22. Katrina declared cat 4 on FRIDAY. Blanco declared Nat'l Emer the SAME DAY

When she declared a Nat'l Emergency on FRIDAY, THAT is when she should have immediately started receiving federal help.

She didn't get it until a week after declaring a NAT'L EMERGENCY.

[Helga Scow Stern]

23. Very ominous quote:

Mr. Chertoff said he recognized that the local government's capacity to respond to the disaster was severely compromised by the hurricane and flood.

"What happened here was that essentially, the demolishment of that state and local infrastructure, and I think that really caused the cascading series of breakdowns," he said.

[Spazito]

25. Yahoo has removed the pic of bush kissing her on the cheek yet

they have left the caption and the voting ability still up. Why would the remove the pic, one has to wonder.

Here is the link:

http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news/?p=Blanco&c=news_photos

I voted it a 5 to get it up there, it will show how pathetic yahoo is to remove the photo on orders from who?

Edited to add: I think the bush admin asked for it to be removed because the picture would contradict the smearing they are putting out there.