Homicide

I read this last night, but suffered an outage on the internets. But bigger bloggers, including the Big Blue Convention Host, Talk Left, and perhaps first by Adventus, have noticed now and it is a story that needs to be repeated because its implications are so perverse and terrible.

The Red Cross itself says:

Hurricane Katrina: Why is the Red Cross not in New Orleans?

* Access to New Orleans is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities and while we are in constant contact with them, we simply cannot enter New Orleans against their orders.

* The state Homeland Security Department had requested--and continues to request--that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans following the hurricane. Our presence would keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city.

Who the hell, be it local, State or Federal Homeland Security made such an order? And why the hell wasn't it rescinded by Wednesday? To take the suffering of tens of thousands of fellow citizens so cavalierly. It sounds like a decision Stalin would have made toward Leningrad in the Summer of 1941.

Somebody is culpable for the deaths of likely hundreds of people by those orders. The first 72 hours are the most critical...the majority of those stranded received no assistance until Friday...far more than 72 hours after the levees broke...120 hours after the Hurricane.

This should be shouted from the Rooftops...be they Republican, Democrat, what have you, there was no excuse for this to have been so long unremedied. If it is, somehow, connected to the timing of Bush's visit, it is criminal -- even I don't expect such craveness from this Administration, but then again, they do manage to always plumb the depths of outrage consistently.

More class-based outrage...MONEY CHANGES EVERYTHING!

At one point Friday, the evacuation was interrupted briefly when school buses pulled up so some 700 guests and employees from the Hyatt Hotel could move to the head of the evacuation line — much to the amazement of those who had been crammed in the Superdome since last Sunday.

"How does this work? They (are) clean, they are dry, they get out ahead of us?" exclaimed Howard Blue, 22, who tried to get in their line. The National Guard blocked him as other guardsmen helped the well-dressed guests with their luggage.

The 700 had been trapped in the hotel, near the Superdome, but conditions were considerably cleaner, even without running water, than the unsanitary crush inside the dome. The Hyatt was severely damaged by the storm. Every pane of glass on the riverside wall was blown out.

COMPETENCY, and/or lack thereof of the Bush Administration, EXHIBIT 1,434

Several states ready and willing to send National Guard troops to the rescue in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans didn't get the go-ahead until days after the storm struck — a delay nearly certain to be investigated by Congress.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson offered Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco help from his state's National Guard on Sunday, the day before Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana. Blanco accepted, but paperwork needed to get the troops en route didn't come from Washington until late Thursday.

COMPETENCY, and/or lack thereof of the Bush Administration, Exhibit 1,435 -- "I cannot act on this, I've got 10 interviews coming up on FoxNews" edition:

As reports continued of famished and dehydrated people isolated across the Gulf Coast, angry questions were pressed about why the military has not been dropping food packets for them -- as was done in Afghanistan, Bosnia and in the aftermath of the Asian tsunami.

Bill Wattenburg, a consultant for the University of California Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and one of the designers of the earlier food drop programs, said that he has lobbied the administration and the military to immediately begin something similar. He said he was told that the military was prepared to begin, but that it was awaiting a request from FEMA.

DUPLICITOUS, Exhibit 2,483.

The State of Local Government never asked for help from us in a timely fashion, certainly not before the Hurricane.

Well, except for the letter, linked to above, on Sunday, August 28, 2005, before the Hurricane struck that is.



Kanye West is looking wiser all the time.