8:24 pm CDT
A Crime of the Greatest Magnitude

I don't think I made myself clear enough in the post below, so I'm going to try to clarify myself now.

It is Tuesday night, over a week since the nightmare in New Orleans began, and the mainstream national media is assuring us that everything is under control. However, Interdictor reports today that fires are raging all over New Orleans, and a few minutes ago WWL-TV reported that firefighters are thinly stretched.

You would think, then, that it would be a good idea to welcome volunteers from across the country to fight these fires. Welcome them with open arms.

And yet, one thousand trained firefighters from Utah who, out of the goodness of their hearts, volunteered to assist in this effort are being trained by FEMA in the fine art of passing out PR pamphlets.

Well, not quite a thousand. A great many of these firefighters have torn off their FEMA t-shirts and walked away in disgust.

This goes beyond incompetence. This goes beyond mere mistakes being made. And this goes beyond the boneheaded stupidity of bureaucracy. This is nothing less than ...
The Deliberate Sabotage of Hurricane Relief Efforts (commentary by Alex Jones and Paul Joseph Watson)

3:38 pm CDT
The Continuing Refusal of FEMA to Do Anything

This is not about incompetence. What has happened here is that FEMA has been ordered to "stand down" and to frustrate the efforts of those who are attempting to help ...

"As New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin pleaded on national television for firefighters - his own are exhausted after working around the clock for a week - a battalion of highly trained men and women sat idle Sunday in a muggy Sheraton Hotel conference room in Atlanta. Many of the firefighters, assembled from Utah and throughout the United States by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, thought they were going to be deployed as emergency workers. Instead, they have learned they are going to be community-relations officers for FEMA, shuffled throughout the Gulf Coast region to disseminate fliers and a phone number: 1-800-621-FEMA ..." LINK

(They don't want those firefighters in New Orleans because they want the fires.)

1:46 pm CDT
While the flags are at half-mast for Chief Justice Rehnquist ...

Morticians Prep for 40,000 Bodies in New Orleans

1:44 pm CDT
The Federal Rescue Effort

New Orleans deputy police commander, W.S. Riley: "The guard arrived 48 hours after the hurricane with 40 trucks. They drove their trucks in and went to sleep. For 72 hours this police department and the fire department and handful of citizens were alone rescuing people. We have people who died while the National Guard sat and played cards. I understand why we are not winning the war in Iraq if this is what we have ..." LINK

Female Survivors Urged by Government Rescuers to Flash Breasts for Help

12:39 pm CDT
"Premeditated Murder"

Excerpts from an eyewitness account written two days ago:

The national media reports that hope, supplies and food were now being distributed in the area. However, once we arrived in the Algiers district of New Orleans after seven checkpoints, the reality shows otherwise.

...

There is a huge military and police presence but none of it to provide services. All of them, north and south of the river, are stationed in front of private buildings and abandoned stores, protecting private property.

The goods they are driving in are for their own forces.

Not one of them has delivered water to Algiers or gone to the houses to see if sick or elderly people need help. There is no door-to-door survey to see who was injured. The overwhelming majority of people who have stayed in Algiers are black but some are white. One white man in his late 50s in Algiers pointed across the street to a 10-acre grassy lot. It looks like a beautiful park. He said, "I had my daughter call FEMA. I told them I want to donate this land to the people in need. They could set up 100 tractor trailers with aid, they could set up tents. No one has ever called me back." He is clearly angry.

... One young black man said, "The government abandoned us ... [it's] pre-meditated murder." Another said, "Why would you [the government] protect a building instead of rescuing people that have been without food or water for three or four days? It seems like that was the plan. We couldn't starve them out, the hurricane didn't kill them, it seems planned ..."

MORE: Eyewitness Report from New Orleans

12:05 pm CDT
Bitch

While touring the Astrodome, the former First Lady Barbara Bush said, "So many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this, this is working very well for them." LINK

"Yassuh, Massuh', us darkies enjoys bein' po', we sho' does. So doan' you be worryin' 'bout us. We happy heah' in de' Astrodome, all crammed up together wif'out no privacy, our homes all washed away, our friends an' family dead. We used to it ..."

11:34 am CDT
Hitler to Lead Investigation of Reichstag Fire

Bush to Lead Investigation on Response to Hurricane Katrina

11:28 am CDT
Genocide, Diaspora, Destruction of a City = Big $ for Halliburton

New World Orleans: Microcosm for the "New America"

Katrina could prompt new black "great migration"

Evacuees not told they were going to Utah

Uri Dowbenko: FEMA Katrina Karma-Ethnic Cleansing in New Orleans

Meanwhile in Houston, headquarters of Halliburton ...
Port of Houston Gets Hurricane Boom

3:09 pm CDT
Today's News

It's not at all clear who New Orleans police killed on that bridge yesterday. Was it the "gunmen" who opened fire on the contractors, or the contractors? ...

Five Dead 'Were Army Workers'

Gunmen Attack Contractors on Bridge

Violence Mars Rescue

Interdictor reports: Law enforcement have absolutely lost their minds. Some guy wearing khaki fatigues and black vests which say Police on them have their faces covered in black ski masks and are touting M4-A1s with front hand grips -- like they're some kind of Delta Force operators waiting to hit the tire house. They're guarding the four corners around the Bell South building for crying out loud. And what, they need secret identities? ... LINK

Two reports from Wayne Madsen:

Government Jamming New Orleans Communications Links

US State Dept & Bush-Cheney Stall Katrina Relief

Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu says:
Bush Faked Levee Repair for Photo Op Yesterday

Guess who's going to make a lot of money on this disaster:
Halliburton Hired for Storm Cleanup

3:09 pm CDT
Things I Wonder ...

I wonder if they'll really be able to rebuild New Orleans. Yes, I suppose they will. The port is too important not to have a city there, and there's too much money to be made in this massive urban renewal effort. Yes, they'll rebuild New Orleans. But it won't be our New Orleans; it will be a city of the military-industrial complex.

I wonder what will happen to all those blacks who were not exterminated by FEMA and now sit in concentration camps. Somehow I can't see them being allowed to return to the "better" New Orleans described by Bush. Oh, maybe they'll let a few back in, a few token blacks for the sake of appearances, and a few to provide atmosphere and serve the tourists in the French Quarter.

I wonder what the French Quarter will be like years from now. I doubt it will be the French Quarter we all knew and loved. It will probably be run by the Disney Corporation, a sanitized, slicked-up French Quarter, with an admission fee and retinal scanning at the gates.

Maybe I'm wrong about these things. I hope so. I badly want the old New Orleans back, just the way it was. I don't think I want Bush's "better" New Orleans.

Anne Rice: Do You Know What It Means to Lose New Orleans?

1:03 am CDT
Night falls on the lost city ... the city that was our heart: the port that pumped the blood of life upward through our veins ... a blood composed not just of oil and grain and material things, but a wildness, too-a spirit of freedom whispering in the dark: the tangled moss and swampy deeps, the fleur-de-lis that beguiled our fathers and traces yet our sweetest dreams ... night falls on the lost city ... night falls on the heart ...

10:01 pm CDT
Aaron Broussard: "Murder"

Why did FEMA turn back trucks with water?

Why did FEMA deny fuel to Jefferson Parrish?

Why did FEMA cut emergency communication lines?

Why did the federal government, from the President on down, lie to local officials that "the cavalry" was on the way when they knew it wasn't?

Transcript of the Meet the Press interview with Aaron Broussard, President of Jefferson Parish:

MR. RUSSERT: Jefferson Parish President Broussard, let me start with you. You just heard the director of Homeland Security's explanation of what has happened this last week. What is your reaction?

MR. AARON BROUSSARD: We have been abandoned by our own country. Hurricane Katrina will go down in history as one of the worst storms ever to hit an American coast, but the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina will go down as one of the worst abandonments of Americans on American soil ever in U.S. history. I am personally asking our bipartisan congressional delegation here in Louisiana to immediately begin congressional hearings to find out just what happened here. Why did it happen? Who needs to be fired? And believe me, they need to be fired right away, because we still have weeks to go in this tragedy. We have months to go. We have years to go. And whoever is at the top of this totem pole, that totem pole needs to be chain-sawed off and we've got to start with some new leadership.

It's not just Katrina that caused all these deaths in New Orleans here. Bureaucracy has committed murder here in the greater New Orleans area, and bureaucracy has to stand trial before Congress now. It's so obvious. FEMA needs more congressional funding. It needs more presidential support. It needs to be a Cabinet-level director. It needs to be an independent agency that will be able to fulfill its mission to work in partnership with state and local governments around America. FEMA needs to be empowered to do the things it was created to do. It needs to come somewhere, like New Orleans, with all of its force immediately, without red tape, without bureaucracy, act immediately with common sense and leadership, and save lives. Forget about the property. We can rebuild the property. It's got to be able to come in and save lives.

We need strong leadership at the top of America right now in order to accomplish this and to-- reconstructing FEMA.

MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Broussard, let me ask--I want to ask--should...

MR. BROUSSARD: You know, just some quick examples...

MR. RUSSERT: Hold on. Hold on, sir. Shouldn't the mayor of New Orleans and the governor of New Orleans bear some responsibility? Couldn't they have been much more forceful, much more effective and much more organized in evacuating the area?

MR. BROUSSARD: Sir, they were told like me, every single day, "The cavalry's coming," on a federal level, "The cavalry's coming, the cavalry's coming, the cavalry's coming." I have just begun to hear the hoofs of the cavalry. The cavalry's still not here yet, but I've begun to hear the hoofs, and we're almost a week out.

Let me give you just three quick examples. We had Wal-Mart deliver three trucks of water, trailer trucks of water. FEMA turned them back. They said we didn't need them. This was a week ago. FEMA--we had 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel on a Coast Guard vessel docked in my parish. The Coast Guard said, "Come get the fuel right away." When we got there with our trucks, they got a word. "FEMA says don't give you the fuel." Yesterday--yesterday--FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communication lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in, he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards on our line and says, "No one is getting near these lines." Sheriff Harry Lee said that if America--American government would have responded like Wal-Mart has responded, we wouldn't be in this crisis.

But I want to thank Governor Blanco for all she's done and all her leadership. She sent in the National Guard. I just repaired a breach on my side of the 17th Street canal that the secretary didn't foresee, a 300-foot breach. I just completed it yesterday with convoys of National Guard and local parish workers and levee board people. It took us two and a half days working 24/7. I just closed it.

MR. RUSSERT: All right.

MR. BROUSSARD: I'm telling you most importantly I want to thank my public employees...

MR. RUSSERT: All right.

MR. BROUSSARD: ...that have worked 24/7. They're burned out, the doctors, the nurses. And I want to give you one last story and I'll shut up and let you tell me whatever you want to tell me. The guy who runs this building I'm in, emergency management, he's responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, "Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?" And he said, "Yeah, Mama, somebody's coming to get you. Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on Friday." And she drowned Friday night. She drowned Friday night.

MR. RUSSERT: Mr. President...

MR. BROUSSARD: Nobody's coming to get us. Nobody's coming to get us. The secretary has promised. Everybody's promised. They've had press conferences. I'm sick of the press conferences. For God sakes, shut up and send us somebody.

SEE THE VIDEO CLIP HERE

9:16 pm CDT
Louisiana Senator Threatens President Bush

September 4, 2005 11:49 a.m. EST

Douglas Maher - All Headline News Staff Reporter

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - Louisiana Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu threatens President Bush with physical violence this morning on ABC's Sunday morning news program, "This Week".

"If one person criticizes our sheriffs, or says one more thing, including the President of the United States, he will hear from me - one more word about it after this show airs and I - I might likely have to punch him - literally," says Landrieu.

"The President came here yesterday for a photo-op, he got his photo-op but we are never going to get this fixed if he does not send us help now."

It is a felony to threaten the President of The United States with violence.

No official comment from the White House has been reported.

LINK

9:12 pm CDT
The Most Vital Port in the US

New Orleans: A Geopolitical Prize

6:19 pm CDT
It's Time for Heads to Roll

New Orleans Times-Picayune: Fire Every FEMA Official

Paul Craig Roberts: Impeach Bush Now, Before More Die

3:09 pm CDT
Interview with Aaron Broussard


In an interview this morning on Meet the Press, Aaron Broussard, President of Jefferson Parrish, tearfully described the turning-away of supplies by FEMA, the cutting of local emergency communications by FEMA, and the repeated lies from the federal officials that help was on the way ...
SEE THE VIDEO CLIP HERE

3:09 pm CDT
A Realistic Fear

Mayor Nagin: "If the CIA slips me something and next week you don't see me, you'll all know what happened." LINK

3:09 pm CDT
The Deliberate Failure to Save New Orleans

Katrina Relief: Incompetence or Conspiracy?

Provocateur Forces in New Orleans? The Case Builds

FEMA Outsourced N.O. Disaster Plans to Political Cronies/Donors

6:36 pm CDT
"Insurgency"? I thought they were storm victims.

While some fight the insurgency in the city, other carry on with rescue and evacuation operations. Helicopters are still pulling hundreds of stranded people from rooftops of flooded homes ...

Troops begin combat operations in New Orleans

6:34 pm CDT
Journalists Starting to Remember They're Journalists

The Rebellion of the Talking Heads; Newscasters, sick of official lies and stonewalling, finally start snarling

Shepard Smith and Geraldo Rivera were livid about the situation in NOLA as they appeared on H&C. When Hannity tried his usual spin job and said "let's get this in perspective," Smith chopped him off at the knees and started yelling at him saying, "This is perspective!" It was shocking ...
SEE THE VIDEO CLIP HERE

6:31 pm CDT
"Bush doesn't care about black people ..."

Last night, NBC censored Kenye West's unscripted comments from the West Coast feed of the benefit program. There are also reports of certain cable companies censoring it from CNN Headline News. All the more reason to make it widely available on the Web.
SEE THE VIDEO CLIP HERE

2:03 pm CDT
Something is NOT right

Craig Roberts writes to InfoWars:

Having worked in Emergency Management in the military, and on the civilian side (I'm with Mayes County Emergency Management in Oklahoma as the Dive Team Leader), I can't help but wonder by the old REX-84 plan is not being used. This would open up Fort Chaffee, Eglin AFB and a dozen other empty bases to refugees immediately. Fort Chaffee alone has warehouses full of bedding for the barracks, blankets etc. The base infrastructure is intact and ready to be used. It can be supplemented by warehouses that have GP Medium and GP large tents. I was there when we took the Vietnames refugees in mass, and the Mariel boat lift bunch.

Eglin and others are the same. So why are we not moving people there now? Why the Astrodome?

If this were a city that had been nuked by terrorists, where is the plan FEMA allegedly had for displaced persons?

Something here just ain't right. Hmmmm.

Methinks there's something else at play. But what? ... READ MORE

No, something is not right, and hasn't been right since long before the hurricane struck ...

Louisiana asked for help four days before Bush ended his vacation.

The New York Times reprinted without contradiction Bush's false claim that nobody "anticipated the breach of the levees."

Mayor Daley offered aid on Sunday, and was shocked when the feds refused it; also "baffled" by the slowness of FEMA's response

There was nothing terribly difficult for FEMA to figure out, nothing that this supposedly great nation could not afford. Within 24 hours of last December's tsunami, food and other supplies were being air-dropped. Why was that not the case in New Orleans? No explanation makes sense except that the lack of response was deliberate.

More links:

Criticism of Bush mounts as more than 10,000 feared dead

Frankenstein's monster is on the loose

Vacation is Over... an open letter from Michael Moore to George W. Bush

1:39 pm CDT
Rapper Kenye West Blasts Bush during Live NBC Show

While allowing that "the Red Cross is doing everything they can," West declared that government authorities are intentionally dragging their feet on aid to the Gulf Coast. Without getting specific, he added, "They've given them permission to go down and shoot us." After he stated, "George Bush doesn't care about black people," the camera cut away to comedian Chris Tucker ... LINK

1:23 pm CDT
BBC Commentary

Matt Frei, BBC: "It is total mayhem. I have been to many disaster zones in Asia and a few in Africa and I must say considering the resources available here and all the rhetoric we've heard from Washington the situation here is much worse than comparable situations for these sort of crises in the Third world. It is quite frankly an indictment." LINK

New Orleans Crisis Shames Americans

1:13 pm CDT
"Let them eat cake, but not in my presence ..."

Evacuees at Cajundome wait for first lady, and for lunch