Fury Meets Katrina Hospital Arrests

[Rose Siding]

NEW ORLEANS — This week's arrest of a doctor and two nurses who stayed through Hurricane Katrina to care for stranded hospital patients — but are now accused of killing four of them — has prompted a strong backlash in the medical and legal communities here.
...
"This is vilifying the heroes," said Dr. Daniel Nuss, who supervises the accused doctor, Anna Pou, at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center........"By personal accounts from nurses, doctors, administrators, and support personnel who knew Dr. Pou and had worked with her closely in the months before Katrina, her work during the crisis was 'heroic,' 'selfless' and 'distinguished,' " Nuss said in a prepared statement. "With other dedicated doctors and nurses, she worked without sleep and without nourishment…. At great self-sacrifice, she prevented further loss of life and has been credited with saving multiple people from dying.

"Apparently there were individuals in the hospital who could not understand why so many people were dying," Nuss' statement continued. "Allegations were made, egregiously accusing Dr. Pou and the others of giving too much narcotic pain medication, and even using the word 'euthanasia.' This attracted national news coverage, which became absurdly sensationalistic."

...Some other New Orleans doctors accused (Atty Gen) Foti, who plans to run for reelection in 2008, of grandstanding.

"Where the hell was he?" asked Dr. L. Lee Hamm of Tulane University School of Medicine, who helped care for stranded patients there after Katrina. "Where the hell was the law enforcement? Where the hell was anybody until Friday?"— Sept. 2, the day large-scale evacuations began in many areas.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-na-katrina21jul21,0,6607636.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[jobycom]

1. Nice to hear a doctor's opinion of this. nt

[DeepModem Mom]

2. K&R

[leesa]

3. Their arrest will highlight the absolute nonresponse of rescue.

What else were they to do? Let these people painfully suffocate when they could ease their suffering?

[lonestarnot]

13. I don't know, I wasn't there, but I do like the idea of a highlight w/

punctuation!

[liberalmike27]

4. Personally

I find it hard to believe that these lifelong doctors and nurses did anything untoward, and if I was on a jury, I'd have a hard time convicting anyone of doing anything with malace. Perhaps they did make the decision to relieve the suffering of a terminal patient that had been ignored by the system, I don't know. But I don't think their decisions were made lightly, or with hostility, and perhaps they were made with a bleary, tired, and hungry mind too. I don't think their lives should be destroyed for this; it just isn't fair. The real problem was that the relief didn't arrive soon enough.

[Rose Siding]

5. I was worried about the forensics but this article addresses that

snip>
For instance, the affidavit noted that the bodies of the victims contained a "lethal amount" of morphine, and levels of midazolam that were "greater than expected from normal therapeutic doses."

But Ben deBoisblanc, a Louisiana State University medical professor and a doctor at Charity Hospital, said those kinds of quantifications could be tricky, because the amount of drugs needed to treat pain and anxiety could vary significantly from patient to patient.

"The attorney general can't tell from a drug level what's an appropriate dose," he said.

[girl gone mad]

44. Tolerance.

Pain patients can develop quite a tolerance to morphine and can take doses well above the 'lethal' level. Kurt Cobain had well over the 'lethal' dose of heroin in his system at the time of his death, but he still managed to get up, get a shotgun and shoot himself in the head.

[FlaGranny]

7. I'm inclined to believe that what the doctor

and nurses did was to supply terminally ill patients with hospice care. In other words, they did the right thing.

[ThomCat]

16. I am guessing that you are right.

I'm a chronic pain patient with limited mobility. If I was in that hospital and had no way out this is exactly what I'd want them to do.

[MissWaverly]

31. Yes, and remember the power was failing

and much of these hospitals were partially flooded

[Digit]

48. I'm with you

I would rather be medicated to sleep than to suffer starving to death or worse.
Aren't they SUPPOSED to relieve suffering, afterall?

[ClintonTyree]

53. I think the Terri Schiavo case pretty well answers that question.

The fundy nutbags think everyone should be kept alive no matter what the circumstances. Only "god" has the right to end life. :eyes: They don't bother to think about the fact that most of these people would have died already without "man's" intervention. Nope, they WANT people to needlessly suffer. It brings them so much closer to their savior that way. :puke:

These Doctors and Nurses did yeoman's duty in the face of horrendous circumstances. If they'd turned tail and run in the first place before the hurricane hit probably most of those patients would have died. They saved many, many lives. No good deed goes unpunished, isn't that the old chestnut that would apply here?

[TankLV]

62. Good points. I remember who apeshit they went for the Pope's suffering

and how "it was wonderful to see someone suffering with dignity" and all the other crap about how "glorious" it was to suffer instead of have a merciful death with dignity and no pain.

I was sooo pissed when I heard/read all this crap about that last pope and the "nobility of suffering" bullshit.

[me b zola]

43. I agree

I remember those images from NO like they were yesterday. The total hopelessness, no one knew if help was ever going to come.

I feel for the family members who lost their loved ones in that hospital, but would they really rather their loved one suffered a drawn out painful death if relief didn't come? I have considered all of the different "sides", and I feel as though the physician and the accused nurses did no harm.

[SoCalDem]

6. What's really behind this

I would be willing to BET, that there's some lawsuits against the hospital for negligence and failure to institute and execute a PLAN.. The hospital corporation does not want to pay out, so they must prove willful acts of criminal behavior by their "employees".. If they are found guilty and punished, the hospital can either settle for a lot less, or be in a good position when it comes time for their lawsuits..

My guess is that the "owners" of the hospital were well away from any danger.., and of course it's easy for them to surmise that someone in ICU could have survived.. My guess is they could not.. Every one of those people who died, died a better death that the people who are still being found in the rubble of their own homes:cry:

[Princess Turandot]

10. IIRC, this started with a doctor at the facility..

who had some issue with the place, such as being disciplined or whatever. Not long after the main debacle, he was making comments about euthanasia.

It's a state facility, so the owners are the government. With no blame being laid at the doorstep of the folks whose incompetence facilitated this disaster (at all levels of government)IMO, they're looking for scapegoats.The state of Louisiana should be ashamed of itself, again.

[pitohui]

39. yes, this all seems to be coming from one shit stirrer

i don't know what his prob. is w. these women, maybe one of them wouldn't go to bed w. him one time, who knows, but the rumors all go back to this one individual

[AzDar]

8. Let's arrest Bush and Brownie: the REAL KILLERS.

This scapegoating is just nauseating.

[saigon68]

19. The Chimpanzee sat around with his THUMB up his ass

[SlavesandBulldozers]

51. yep

he did what he does best.

[uppityperson]

28. Here is a good line from the article

"If you want to prosecute, if you want to know who is responsible for people dying, it's the people who were not here," Hamm said. "It's not the people who were here."

Prosecute FEMA, impeach Mr.bush and remove him from office for incompetence and manslaughter. As a nurse, as a volunteer 2 wks after Katrina, I can well imagine what they were facing and how they did the best they could. It can be difficult to tell a lethal dose of morphine from a therapeutic dose if the patient were on long term high dose pain control. These people should be set free with a huge apology and FEMA/bush gone after.

[TankLV]

63. don't forget Jerkoff - he's just as bad as the rest.

[Warpy]

9. I know I am furious about this

I'm a nurse. I know what they were facing inside that hospital. I know how sick those patients were, how miserable, how close to death because the infrastructure was simply allowed to die first by FEMA.

FEMA is what should be on trial, not a doc and nurses who allowed patients in agony to float out on morphine and Versed instead of slowly drowning in their own fluids because there was no power to the equipment that might have saved them. FEMA blockaded the city. FEMA refused to allow diesel trucks to reach that hospital so the generators could be powered. FEMA killed those patients.

This is idiotic grandstanding by a truly evil man who should be tarred, feathered, and run out of NO on a rail, not kept on the ballot.

Given the hellish conditions in that hospital and the callous nature of the administration, if it had been either of my parents who had been medicated for comfort and had their lives shortened as a result, I would be GRATEFUL.

These three professionals are heroes.

[Karmakaze]

11. Hmmpf

I'm a nurse. I know what they were facing inside that hospital. I know how sick those patients were, how miserable, how close to death because the infrastructure was simply allowed to die first by FEMA.

Wow, you were there? You actually participated in the treatment of the patients? Or are you perhaps doing a Frist?

Investigators allege the suspects killed four patients — all residents of a long-term care ward — with a drug cocktail of morphine and midazolam, which is commonly used to relieve pain and anxiety among long-term-care patients.

In an affidavit, a witness alleges that Pou said "lethal" doses of the drugs would be given to a number of patients on the ward.

Among the patients was a 380-pound paralyzed man who was "aware, conscious and alive," according to the affidavit.

That's funny, at least one person who was actually there disagrees with your assessment of at least one of the patients. Would that man have lived if not given the drugs? Who knows.

[Demit]

15. And you don't know if the unnamed witness is telling the truth, do you?

In the context of being just observers here, none of us able to know what went on in that hospital during those days, I am inclined to listen to the opinion of a person who has experience in the field, experience in similar situations. Nothing I have ever had to face comes remotely close. Hmmpf indeed.

[Warpy]

20. I've worked during emergencies, hon

although none quite as extreme as this. I know what happens when generators fail, I've been there. Ours were back online within half an hour because FEMA wasn't involved. Everything that is done by machine has to be done by hand and some of it can't be done at all. Theirs were out for over a day when all this happened.

I also know right to lifers see what they want to see and exclude what they don't.

"Aware, conscious and alive" doesn't tell much. Was he able to breathe on his own? Manage his own secretions? Why was he there? If he was fully conscious, what were his wishes? Why were these parts of the story left out?

Please consider that you don't know the story, either, and that the right to lifers have a reason to suppress the operative parts of the story, as does this grandstanding DA who is up for reelection.

[tomp]

58. "Aware, conscious and alive" doesn't tell much.

actually it's a double redundancy. in order to be aware you have to be conscious. in order to be conscious you have to be alive. correction, triple redundancy: one cannot be accused of murdering a dead person.

you're right, doesn't tell us much at all, but it's purposely TRYING to sound otherwise.

[Rose Siding]

21. Let's check out the science-

snip>
But Ben deBoisblanc, a Louisiana State University medical professor and a doctor at Charity Hospital, said those kinds of quantifications could be tricky, because the amount of drugs needed to treat pain and anxiety could vary significantly from patient to patient.

"The attorney general can't tell from a drug level what's an appropriate dose," he said.

[pitohui]

40. he isn't unnamed in other reports

i should try to find a link because the times-picayune did tell who was spreading these rumors

if foti has so much proof then i wonder why he couldn't share it w. the DA, harry connick is wondering the same

this is grandstanding and self-promotion

pure and simple

[aquart]

18. Yes, they are.

And I don't want to meet the jury that would convict them.

[mainer]

24. I'm a doctor. And I don't believe these charges one bit.

Neither do any of my doctor or nurse friends. "Mercy killings", when they've occurred in the past, have been done by INDIVIDUALS -- some of them deranged or homicidal. But to imagine a conspiracy among three respected professionals to euthanize patients - that's beyond my comprehension.

As for the 'witness" who heard these women plotting to kill patients? You have to wonder if it's someone as credible as that "witness" nurse in the Terry Schiavo case who heard Terry laugh and ask for food and plead not to let anyone kill her. Some rabid right-to-lifer.

[JPZenger]

30. NPR Quoted the Allegations

NPR's report a couple days ago quoted the allegations in the Attorney General's report. The report simply quoted other staff persons as saying that the doctor and the two nurses said they were going to inflict lethal doses. They were simple factual statements. The doctors and two nurses made no attempt to hide what they were doing - because they knew it was justified.

The AG said he "doesn't care about motive." I'm not an attorney, but that's not my understanding of a murder statute.

[LostinVA]

36. I have a sister and mom who are nurses, and several EMTs in my family

They all agree with you and your medical professional friends.

This wasn't some sociopathic "mercy" killer ala Annie Wilkes, or a Dr. Mengele..... thees were caring medical professionals who stood by their patients for days and days at risk to their own lives, during everything by hand, during what they could with what they had. THey should be getting medals around their necks, not handcuffs around their wrists.

[pitohui]

45. i am confident you are correct, lostinva

there is no way these ladies stayed behind just to go on a killing spree, that is illogical and insane on the face of it

they gave some dying patients some painkillers as is only right but which is, unfortunately, v. unpopular w. a certain element in new orleans

don't get me started

[knitter4democracy]

61. My hubby hopes all charges will be dropped.

He's an internist, and he just got sick to his stomach when all of this happened. He didn't have any vacation time left at that point, or we would've figured out a way to get him down there. The practice he works for is tough on that.

It was the right decision, and they did the best they could. These are the same medical staff that had to keep themselves going with ringers IVs, right? Yeah, I'd like to see Foti in that situation and not sitting in a corner crying for his mama.

I've posted a link further down for her lawyer's webpage with his contact info so we can send money to help with the defense fund.

[HeeBGBz]

34. I agree. Put the blame on the real culprits

Those doctors did the best they could under such awful conditions. These doctors and nurses deserve better than scapegoating.

[UpInArms]

12. remember they arrested the sheriff for getting FEMA ice?

Mississippi Sheriff Charged With Helping People After Hurricane Katrina

A Mississippi sheriff is being prosecuted for helping those affected by Hurricane Katrina. Forrest County Sheriff Billy McGee, in the days following the natural disaster, seized two ice trucks from a FEMA staging area at Camp Shelby and had them driven to locations where hurricane victims needed ice, the local NBC affiliate reported.

The sheriff is charged with a misdemeanor of interfering with, intimidating and impeding a federal officer. McGee's orders were against federal protocol, and a National Guardsman was arrested when he tried to stop McGee's deputies from taking the trucks.

McGee acknowledged to the Hattiesburg American that he did act outside federal regulations when he asked two ice truck drivers to follow him to distribution centers in the Brooklyn and Sheeplo communities in Mississippi. McGee said, "I didn't see anything wrong with what I was doing other than it was outside the protocol."

Area residents agreed with Sheriff McGee and held a rally on his behalf where a petition was circulated. Forrest County School District Superintendent Kay Clay received applause when he told the crowd, "I believe he deserves a medal for helping the people of South Mississippi."

...more...

[othermeans]

42. It doesn't matter they will still vote Republican in the fall

[yellowcanine]

14. It's called palliative care. Sometimes the amount of morphine needed to

ease their pain kills them. Better that then have them suffer for a few more hours because you didn't give them enough morphine to make them comfortable. It's obviously a judgement call and yes it can therefore be abused but I would trust the judgement of the doctor who was there over a publicity seeking district attorney after the fact. If we prosecute doctors for close calls made under duress, guess what, soon we will have doctors that make sure they are never in that situation and if they are, they will choose the "safe" route rather than make the choice based on their best medical judgement.

[warrens]

17. Frankly, if I were comatose

I would rather a painless death to being abandoned to drown or starve to death or die painfully from infection.

Not saying they did it, but I am sure glad I wasn't in THEIR position. They were heroes and this is second-guessing. As that Tulane doc said, where the hell was the DA when this was happening? Probably staying with family 100 miles away, safe and dry.

[JPZenger]

22. Were "Do Not Resusitate" Nursing Home Patients

The individuals who were given "mercy killing" doses were not general patients in the hospital. They were on a floor that was leased out as a nursing home/hospice. NPR said the people had "do not resusitate" orders on them before Katrina hit.

The situation that these people faced was absolutely unbearable. It is unconcionable that more efforts were not made to rescue them. The medical staff were heroes. They had no reason to use mercy killing unless they knew the patients were in pain and would not survive.

Only the most seriously ill people were in the hospital. Elective procedures had been delayed, as is standard practice in bad weather.

They were functioning in 100 degree inside temperatures on a top floor of a building with no air conditioning and no ventilation. They probably were running out of medicines and may not have had clean water or much food. There were violent people trying to break into the hospital to steal drugs. The lower floors of the hospital were under water, with bodies floating inside the building. The Federal and State Governments had left them on their own.

Like most Louisiana politicians, this guy is an anti-abortionist. Some of the most virulent anti-abortion people are also anti-Mercy Killing.

The State Attorney General doesn't even have jurisdiction for murder charges - the Parish District Attorney does, and he hasn't filed charges. Reportedly, a grand jury is needed - I hope they see through this charade.

[JPZenger]

25. Much More Discussion on this Link

Here's much more discussion on this topic at the following:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/7/18/235325/797

[Skittles]

23. "Where the hell was anybody?"

Where indeed - I'd like to see THAT investigated

[colorado_ufo]

26. Apparently the old maxim still holds true -

"No good deed goes unpunished."

I worked for over 20 years in different areas of the medical field, and the arrest and accusation of these selfless and heroic people - who almost became martyrs themselves for the good of others, not for some political or religious cause - is one of the most evil and outrageous acts I have ever heard. The people who engineered this farce should forever hang their heads in shame.

If this does go to trial, I hope that the jury will verbally eviscerate the DA and anyone else who would dare do this to these esceptional human beings. Rather than being arrested, they should be help up as the finest examples of which we could all emulate.

Instead, we have "frat boy" sending our young people to their deaths in Iraq and are obsessing with "gay marriage" and the future of 400,000 frozen cells. And self-serving people still cheering these decisions.

Smoke and mirrors, smoke and mirrors.

[hedgehog]

27. NPR carried this story last February

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5219917


What enrages me about this story is that New Orleans police forcibly removed at least one family member who had stayed at her mother's side throughout the hurricane and aftermath. Whatever else happened, it is clear that the people outside the affected area who had the equipment to save these patients failed to take any action except to possibly tell the staff on site that no help would be coming. As noted in an above thread, people were dying at the New Orleans airport. Any decent President would have had Army field hospitals and Navy hospital ships on site within 24 hours of the hurricane.

[JPZenger]

29. There were Navy ships off the coast

At least one Navy ship was off the coast a short time after Katrina hit, with an on-board hospital. They weren't given orders to do anything.

[krispos42]

33. Yeah, an amphibious assault ship

Loaded to the gills with a huge hospital and helicopters. It's designed to launch a battalion of Marines and deal with the casualties of combat. It followed behind Katrina and was available immediately. Nobody told anybody what to do with it for like 6 days.

[DELUSIONAL]

32. Why isn't bush on trial????

I had to ask the question.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

52. the question of the century.

and thanks for asking it.

It's a post that essentially should just, by default, be put in every thread.

[Pacifist Patriot]

56. Oh I have been so tempted to do just that!

[Hissyspit]

35. Fury at the arrests? Good. I was beginning to think I was alone...

...but that's what I get for only get my news on this story from cable TV. Wet-noodle lashes for me.

[Imagevision]

37. Meanwhile...Bush squashed the Katrina response investigations

Freedom-Democracy-Truth....The american way...!

[Festivito]

38. Indeed. Where were these people who point now. Every second, where?

The doctors were busy every second. I bet that AG doesn't know where he was while people died.

I hope they make each juror recount every minute of what they did.

This prosecution makes me angry.

[goforit]

41. Whoo Hoo!!! You tell them Dr. Hamm!!! Where was the Fuckin Nat. Guard

[2Design]

46. Bush is to blame - and Homeland security for blocking help from

getting into the city - they need to be held accountable - they BLOCKED all help - all water - all people who came with boats, food, and water - they kept them all OUT of the city

[readmoreoften]

47. This is the most disgusting despicable thing i've ever heard.

These scumbags. I guarantee you 100%! I'd stake my LIFE on the fact that any doctor who stayed behind to take care of the sick and dying during Katrina did not THRILL KILL any human being. I trust all of their judgements. I'm sorry, but if a patient was going to die a horrible agonizing death for lack of medication, thank GOD that these doctors were there to help them.

Where was FEMA? Why are THESE people the murderers. Disgusting to the Nth degree.

More proof that conservatives are a cult of suffering.

[vickitulsa]

49. You voiced my thoughts exactly. I'm a chronic pain patient

who has been on what would be "lethal" doses of narcotic pain medication daily for over five years. I would have blown my own brains out long ago if I had not been given these pain meds -- not out of suicidal wishes but simply and purely because I could not bear the ongoing levels of excruciating pain.

People who have never lived with such agony day in and day out have no right judging either the patients who suffer like those in the seventh circle of hell or the medical professionals who have compassion enough to relieve this suffering. I'm appalled beyond belief and was from the time this story was making the news in real time. Appalled at the ones who did NOTHING to rescue endangered individuals and, far worse, withheld and blocked aid and rescue from reaching those who were stuck in hell -- and the heroic caregivers who voluntarily stayed behind to offer what relief they could to the victims of "Bush compassion."

A cult of suffering -- I hadn't thought of that exact phrase, but my feelings are well expressed in that term. IMO, those who butt into the lives of others who are enduring prolonged unbelievable agonies that can only be properly termed TORTURE should have to live out some Twilight-Zone-style nightmare wherein THEY get to be in the position of those who suffer. --And if anyone thinks I sound vengeful here, I'd just say: "You should walk a mile in MY shoes!"

Of course, I can't walk, certainly nowhere near a mile and more likely less than two blocks before pain would put my ass down on the ground. Not the inability to physically stand on my useless slack knee that government doctors butchered twice out of four surgeries over a period of 25 years, but due only to the levels of pain I suffer when putting weight on that knee.

Grandstanding DA's and others who demand that patients of all kinds endure the torments of the damned and be forced to continue living in that condition regardless of the patients' own wishes and the wishes of their close family members and loved ones should at the very least be laughed out of court. And at worst they should be given a big dose of the torture they want to dish out, should circumstances ever permit.

What many who have never BEEN THERE fail to understand is that for an extreme chronic pain patient, simply being allowed by the legal (not the medical) establishment to receive the proper and appropriate levels of pain medication is a constant concern. People like me can live productive and "normal" lives with no (trust me) repeat NO perpetual or even occasional "highs" from those meds and no impairment in thinking from them either. Do I sound high or impaired to you right now? Angry, yes; high or impaired, NO! As one poster said above in this thread, what's lethal or non-lethal is all about something called "drug tolerance"!

Medical professionals know I can drive just as reliably as anyone else and could even perform brain surgery if I had the skills, all while on my regular daily high dose of narcotic pain medication. In my experience, it's not the medical pros but the self-proclaimed "pro-lifers" who would deny people like me the simple humane level of care most people take for granted in life. Self-righteous bastards like these -- let alone political grandstanders like the DA in New Orleans who is persecuting a doctor and two nurses with trumped-up phony charges -- deserve a taste of the same suffering they see fit to inflict on others....

A "cult of suffering" ... yes, in so many ways that is precisely what such people are involved in! I wonder how they'll feel when it comes their turn to endure prolonged pain and misery due to the interference of cruel, mean-spirited, relentless people just like themselves??

It's hypocrisy, utter hypocrisy, the behavior they exhibit. Such persons ought never to be in a position of power over ANYONE.

I'll take death by sleep any time over even 48 hours spent in the level of agony my body is wracked with unless relieved by strong pain meds....

[readmoreoften]

50. I'm so sorry for your pain.

And I'm sorry that all of us have to live under this disgusting cult regime. I'm even sick of calling it Christian. I don't care if they worship aliens. From now on I call it the COS. All they want is for us to suffer for their "God's laws".

Are you terminally ill? Good suffer!

Helping the terminally ill? Good suffer!

Need stem cells? Nope. We're going to make you suffer.

Don't want a pregnancy? We're going to make you suffer AND your future child suffer. That's a two-for-one in our book.

Gay? Want a security in your life and relationships? NO! We're gonna make you suffer. Suffer for being different. Suffer because we don't understand you.

Do you need liberating? Well, not if you're in Darfur. Not if you really need it! No! That would put an end to the suffering. We couldn't have that. We'll rescue the people of Iraq. Who, relatively speaking, don't need rescuing. Why? Well, hell, it'll make Saddam suffer, and the Baathists will suffer. If we're lucky, we'll be able to spread suffering to the whole region.

And then, once we spread suffering to every inch of the world, our Jesus will return, throw all the Jews into the sea (except for the 144,000) so they can suffer. Then he'll wipe out lots of people and we'll float up into heaven. Oh, you'll get to party for a thousand years of Satan's reign. But then... then it's eternal suffering for you!

A cult of death, denial, and suffering. That's all they are.

I hope you feel better and may the COD never touch a hair on your head.

[MasonJar]

54. Arrest Bush; he's the guilty one.

[Vogon_Glory]

55. Foti's Actions: Typical Reflex of a Bureaucracy

For all you DU political scientists out there, as far as I'm concerned, Louisiana Attorney General Foti's actions are entirely in line with what bureaucracies do when faced with a threat to their authority or competence. When such a threat occurs, they scapegoat.

I personally consider Buckaroo Bush and the Executive Branch to be primarily responsible for what happened in New Orleans during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. But the State of Louisiana as well as the City of New Orleans also come in for their share of the blame. Foti's actions are entirely in line with what a bureaucracy does (in this case a bureaucracy charged with law and order and preservation of life) does when it is seen f*ck*ing up.

For you DU political scientists, this is not just a typically American action. This is something almost all government bureaucracies everywhere, across political and cultural lines do.

What we saw happen in New Orleans is what can happen in extremis. The people who were charged with preventing such a case of extremis screwed up big-time (And that's understatement). Heaven help us all, thanks to conservative ideology put into practice since January 20th, 2001, they'll have more opportunities to f*ck up until well into 2009.

[Vidar]

57. Evil can't tolerate real heroes.

[knitter4democracy]

59. Here's the doctor's lawyer's webpage:

http://www.ricksimmons.com/pages/personal.html

I'm pretty sure this is the guy after some searching. I left a message, since I want to send a check to help with her defense costs. If anyone else does, please contact them.

[zalinda]

60. In case you missed it

in the article, here is one other reason this is happening.

"The criticism of the criminal case is not limited to doctors who know Pou personally. Some other New Orleans doctors accused Foti, who plans to run for reelection in 2008, of grandstanding."

It's a political thing, to keep his name front and center. I'm guessing he doesn't realize what a hero he would be if he actually went after the REAL bad guys. But then, that would make too much sense.

zalinda

[TankLV]

64. Arrest and PUNISH bush* and his gang of criminals!

They all laughed and played while the hurricane "they couldn't have foreseen (in spite of holding meetings on that very subject) raged and days after.

Arrest the fucking REPUKE congress along with FEMA - THEY'RE all guilty a thousand times before these courageous souls!

[lovuian]

65. Why stay or rescue people when you may go to prison

or die???

This makes first responders see how America treats them and its NOT PRETTY!!!