connecting*the*dots

George Bush: "No one could have anticipated the breaching of the levees."

Really?

2001
Preliminary Public Health Issues
2002
PBS Special
City in a Bowl
2002
NOLA.com
Washing Away
2003
New Orleans Hurricane Impact Study
2004
National Geographic
Gone With The Water
2004
Independent Weekly
Disaster In The Making
June 2005
New Orleans City Business
New Orleans District of the US Army Corps of Engineers Faces

It took me 10 minutes on Google to find those references. I’ll just chalk up your statement as another lie, Mr. .. eh-hem… President.

But while we’re talking about the levees, let’s discuss what happened to the funding for the Army Corp of Engineers to finish the construction. Apparently, there was a specific article in the Times-Picayune on June 8th of 2004 which detailed the federal cuts for hurricane preparedness and levee construction and improvement in New Orleans. It’s not available on-line, but TMPCafe put together excerpts of the piece here. Here’s a taste:

The Bush administration’s proposed fiscal 2005 budget includes only $3.9 million for the east bank hurricane project. Congress likely will increase that amount, although last year it bumped up the administration’s $3 million proposal only to $5.5 million.

"I needed $11 million this year, and I got $5.5 million," Naomi said. "I need $22.5 million next year to do everything that needs doing, and the first $4.5 million of that will go to pay four contractors who couldn’t get paid this year."

[…]

The challenge now, said emergency management chiefs Walter Maestri in
Jefferson Parish and Terry Tullier in New Orleans, is for southeast Louisiana somehow to persuade those who control federal spending that protection from major storms and flooding are matters of homeland security.

"It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that’s the price we pay," Maestri said. "Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

So apparently, occupying a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and had no weapons of mass destruction is a higher priority than shoring up a defense structure to ensure that the largest homeland disaster ever doesn’t occur. Your President, George Bush, moved FEMA into the Homeland Security classification bucket so he could draw potential disaster protection/relief funding into his War for Oil… er… Against Terror.

How’s that for blatant disregard for public safety? How many people are in American jails for simple possession of narcotics, while this man runs loose destroying our nation, murdering innocent people around the world, while lining his own pockets?

How pompous and disrespectful is this guy?

George Bush, Governor of Texas, giving the "one finger victory salute" before he addressed the state.

George Bush, President of The United States of America, flipping off the press and anyone watching.

No, Fuck You Georgie Boy. WHEN WILL THIS POMPOUS, INCOMPETENT, MURDEROUS, CRIMINAL, COKE-HEAD BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE!?

To the House and Senate: Your constituents are becoming furious. It’s time to relieve this man of his power.