Former CIA Director Tenet Threatens Disclosures?Former CIA director George Tenet, said to be the target of what the Washington Times called "a scathing report by Inspector General John Helgerson” - may go public with embarrassing disclosures about the Bush administration and its actions leading up to Sept. 11, 2001.
The CIA report, prepared as the result of a 17-month investigation by a team of 11 CIA officials, blames Tenet and several top CIA officials for its failure pre-9/11 to deal with al-Qaida.
But f... (more)
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BREAKING: McClellan Refuses To Answer Questions About Levee FundingFrom today’s White House briefing:
REPORTER: There’s a lot of discussion going on about the funding of projects prior to this, whether projects in New Orleans in particular were underfunded because of the Iraq war or for other reasons. Do you find any of this criticism legitimate? Do you think there is any second guessing to be done now about priorities given that [a disaster in] New Orleans was sort of obvious to a lot of the experts?
MCCLELLAN:... (more)
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Bush, lawmakers accused of shortchanging projects: Funding for hurricane, flood protection downLawmakers and President Bush are being confronted by accusations that they shortchanged flood-control and hurricane-protection efforts in the New Orleans area.
A key flood-control project in southeastern Louisiana has seen its federal funding steadily dwindle, from $69 million in 2001 to $32.2 million in 2005, according to congressional offices and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Bush requested $10.5 million for the project for 2006, while the Corps said $62.5 million was requir... (more)
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Local leaders call relief efforts too little, lateNew Orleans on Thursday pulled back from an almost complete collapse of public order, a near anarchy that had supplanted receding floodwaters as the gravest threat to the city's still tenuous recovery.
Evidence that authorities were beginning to get a grip on gargantuan problems varied from the successful and orderly evacuation of Baptist Mercy Hospital to a sharp reduction in the menacing bands of idle refugees, many of them intent on looting that had haunted Uptown neighborhoods... (more)
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The Horror Worsens: Friday Pleas for Help from 'Times-Pic' Blog If anything, the situation grows more desperate in New Orleans, as these very up-close and personal, and terrifying, pleas for help at a Times-Picayune readers' forum reveal today -- including many patients and staff trapped in hospitals. We will update during the day.
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Sidney Smith, Matthew Von Stetina, his wife Bridget and 2 small children along with Adele Bertucci and her mother are trapped on the roof at 97 Fontainebleau Dr. water and food supplies have run o... (more)
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Katrina May Cut Payrolls by 500,000 This MonthHurricane Katrina may cost 500,000 Americans their jobs this month, the biggest decline in payrolls in more than 30 years and a loss that will show up as early as next week in jobless claims figures, economists said.
``There are currently more than a million displaced people, and I don't expect many of them to be back at work by the time of the September payroll survey,'' said Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics in Valhalla, New York. Shepherdson esti... (more)
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Convoys Roll Into New Orleans With Relief SuppliesA caravan of National Guard trucks, escorted by military helicopters, drove into this embattled city early Friday afternoon carrying water, food and other relief supplies for thousands of residents who have been waiting since Hurricane Katrina pummeled the area on Monday.
They arrived just shortly before lawmakers in Washington approved $10.5 billion in emergency funding for the relief effort. The House passed the bill on a voice vote. The Senate had done so Thursday night. Presid... (more)
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‘Major oil spill’ seen on Mississippi RiverA “major oil spill” has been spotted near two storage tanks southeast of New Orleans, the state Department of Environmental Quality said Friday.
The spill was first spotted Thursday during a flyover, department spokeswoman Jean Kelly told MSNBC.com, “but we still don’t have access to the area.”
The spill was just north of Venice, a town in the Mississippi River Delta, and 65 miles southeast of New Orleans.
Each tank is 20... (more)
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Airboaters stalled by FEMA: The pilots stand ready to go help hurricane victims but have not been allowed to do so. As a flooded New Orleans sinks further into despair, up to 500 Florida airboat pilots have volunteered to rescue Hurricane Katrina victims, transport relief workers and ferry supplies.
But they aren't being allowed in. And they're growing frustrated.
"We cannot get deployed to save our behinds," said Robert Dummett, state coordinator of the Florida Airboat Association. He said the pilots, who range from commercial airboat operators to weekend pleasure boaters, "ar... (more)
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FEMA chief: Victims bear some responsibilityThe director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency said Thursday those New Orleans residents who chose not to heed warnings to evacuate before Hurricane Katrina bear some responsibility for their fates.
Michael Brown also agreed with other public officials that the death toll in the city could reach into the thousands.
"Unfortunately, that's going to be attributable a lot to people who did not heed the advance warnings," Brown told CNN.
"I don't ... (more)
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Impeach BushPat Buchanan, former communications director to President Ronald Reagan, former presidential candidate and WND commentator, has come to the conclusion that a courageous Republican legislator should move a bill for impeachment of President Bush.
I reluctantly agree – and for the same reasons.
President Bush has had nearly five years in office to honor his oath of office and enforce immigration laws in this country.
He has not only failed, he has ... (more)
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Bush criticized over storm responseA political storm gathered force on Thursday over President George W. Bush's handling of Hurricane Katrina, as Democrats accused him of a sluggish response to the catastrophic flood that submerged New Orleans, and Bush, in a rare morning television interview, fought back.
"I hope people don't play politics during this period of time," Bush told Diane Sawyer of ABC's "Good Morning America" in an interview in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. "This is a natural disaster, the l... (more)
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'Casual to the point of careless' - Bush under fire for slow reactionPresident Bush faced not only the fallout of Hurricane Katrina but also an intense political storm yesterday as relief experts, government officials and newspaper editorials criticised everything from his administration's disaster preparedness policies to the manner in which he made his public entry into the growing crisis on the Gulf coast.
The New York Times said of a speech he made on Tuesday: "Nothing about the President's demeanour yesterday - which seemed casual to the point... (more)
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The State and the Flood"No one can escape the influence of a prevailing ideology," wrote Ludwig von Mises, and Gulf Coast residents know precisely what it means to be trapped—ostensibly by a flood but actually by statist policies and ideological commitments that put the government in charge of crisis management and public infrastructure. For what we are seeing in New Orleans and the entire Gulf Coast region is the most egregious example of government failure in the United States since September 11, 2001.
... (more)
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Quake swarm rattles expertsOne of California's most active seismic zones of the 1970s is rumbling again, causing concern among scientists who study and residents who live in the fault-strewn desert region.
A series of earthquakes - the strongest with a magnitude of 5.1 on Thursday evening - are shaking near the southeast shore of the Salton Sea, about 86 miles from Palm Springs.
The earthquake swarm between the San Andreas and Imperial faults is turning heads among researchers in Pasadena. Bu... (more)
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Federal aid efforts criticized sharplyPresident Bush and federal relief agencies drew sharp criticism yesterday for the speed and effectiveness of the national government's response to Hurricane Katrina and the New Orleans flood.
With New Orleans and its thousands of stranded residents sliding into anarchy -- without food, water, or medical care -- Terry Ebbert, chief of Homeland Security for New Orleans -- complained that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was not offering enough help.
... (more)
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Insurgents are exploiting soldiers' Internet postings, Army warnsDuring World War II the biggest operational security fear was gossip. Posters warned "Loose lips sink ships." Today the leaders worry about an Army in which virtually every soldier has a digital camera and easy access to the Internet.
For the second time in a year, Army leaders have sent a strong warning to all commanders that soldiers are continuing to post sensitive information on Web sites that "the enemy reads and exploits" for use against U.S. forces.
The Augus... (more)
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Engineers had warned of a looming disasterFor years, engineers up and down the Mississippi River have talked about the disaster that would result if New Orleans' bulwark of levees and flood walls were hit by a hurricane like Katrina. But when it was time to find money to strengthen them, the city's defenses ended up far down the federal government's priority list.
Now, with 80% of the city submerged by water pouring through three breaches in its protections, dealing with the consequences is proving far more difficult than... (more)
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19 Suspected Members of MS-13 Gang Are IndictedNineteen men have been indicted on federal racketeering charges in the most aggressive legal assault in the Washington region on a Latino street gang believed by police to be responsible for a growing list of violent crimes.
It is the first racketeering case brought in Maryland against Mara Salvatrucha, also known as MS-13, and the latest sign of increased federal involvement in the effort to combat gangs.
The sweeping indictment -- and the resources devoted to obta... (more)
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