Posted on 09/07/2005 5:27:08 PM PDT by OXENinFLA
To: Assignment Desk, Daybook Editor
Contact: Trevor Fitzgibbon, Kawana Lloyd or Alex Howe, 202-822-5200, all for Moveon.Org Political Action
News Advisory:
-- Katrina Evacuees to Tell President Bush His Administration Let Them Down
-- Request Meeting with President to Demand Accountability
-- Why Was Federal Funding Cut For Levee Maintenance?
Hurricane Katrina evacuees flew into the nation's capital to tell President Bush to stop blaming local officials for his mistakes and acknowledge that budget cuts and indifference by his administration led to the disaster in New Orleans and along the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
They intend to ask him why he diverted over 40 percent of federal funding between 2001-2005 away from New Orleans. Hundreds are expected to rally in front of the White House at 1 p.m. EDT on Thursday.
"The President of the United States and his appointees let us down," said Christine Mayfield, a New Orleans public school teacher and mother of three who was dislocated and now is staying in North Carolina.
The evacuees are also seeking a meeting with Rep. Henry Waxman, the ranking Democrat on the Government Oversight Committee.
According to Rep. Waxman, "the budget of the Corps of Engineers for construction projects in New Orleans district was cut by over 40 percent between 2001 and 2005, apparently to free up funds for the war in Iraq and homeland security projects. In 2004, for the first time in 37 years, the Corps halted all work on the New Orleans levee system."
New Orleans native Michelle Augillard, one of the evacuees, was working toward her Masters degree at the University of New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina hit. Now, she is staying with a friend in Houston, trying to pick up the pieces of her life, along with her family. Both Michelle and Christine will appear at the rally.
"It is inhumane to have treated citizens of the United States like we were treated," she said. "
Members of MoveOn.org Political Action are scheduled to hand- deliver thousands of petition signatures to the White House after the rally. The petition says, "President Bush should stop blaming the victims of Hurricane Katrina and get to work helping them."
WHO: Katrina Evacuees and MoveOn members
WHAT: Protest outside the White House in support of Hurricane Victims
WHEN: Thursday, September 8th at 1 p.m.
WHERE: Pennsylvania Avenue NW. In front of the White House. (Metro: Red Line: Farragut North. Blue-Orange Line: Farragut West or McPherson Square)
EDITOR'S NOTE: Excellent Visuals -- Signs reading "Shame" and "Help Hurricane Victims"
Prove to me that they are really Katrina refugees and not 'flash mob' activists.
Hey Just...have you seen this????
I know you don't live in Wash..and just go on Fridays at Walter Reed...but you might want to spread the word to your DC Chapter friends about this little get together tomorrow!!!
Indeed, My new neighbors are refugees. There is a small group living at the church nextdoor
take your blood pressure medicine - ping!
Why didn't you just hop on one of your hundreds of public school buses and take the poor and down-trodden to safety? Ooops, they don't come equipped with life vests do they?
If you just lost everything you owned, got chased out of your home by a hurricane, You are looking forward to rebuilding, you have to eat away from home and pay a motel bill till you can move back. What in the hell are you thinking about when you piss away your money on a trip to Washington DC to make accusations that only make you look stupid. Well probably this bunch will be supplemented by the 400 that DC is putting up at the armory.
"In 2004, for the first time in 37 years, the Corps halted all work on the New Orleans levee system."
If you want to get mad about something there's something to be made as hell about. For 37 years the federal government has spent money to protect on e city of 500'000 to 1'000' 000 people from their own unique problem. It's not the good people of utaah's problem that your city is built in a place where it never should have been in the first place pay for your own damned levee's and pumps.
He's doing it by remote control, of course! In this thread, an email from MoveOn.Org is quoted as saying:
Then, starting Friday, in a Karl Rove-led campaign, the White House started to blame state and local officials and even the victims who were stranded without transportation when the Hurricane arrived.In other words, all those reporters and news anchors and editorialists who are now beginning to talk about the obvious failures of the state and local government and many of the residents of New Orleans, are actually only laying blame because KARL ROVE MADE THEM DO IT. And Rove, of course, takes his orders from President Bush.
So it's actually crystal clear (if you're a paranoid, conspiracy-nut leftist) that whenever anyone, anywhere, points out the failures of anyone other than the federal government, it's actually *Bush* doing the accusing. He's the puppet master behind it all.
LOL! This is just too funny.
I don't care if they're with MoveOn.Organ. That only means they currently aren't sucking off the government teat but Soros'.
He can have them.
The last major Moveon event (other than funding Sheehan), was a rally in Washington against Bush's judicial nominees...
And it was on TV, and I distinctly remember Byrd, Durbin, Reid and CLINTON standing there as their representatives...
Therefore, Hitlery Clinton has shown herself to be in MOVEON.orgs camp...not only behind the scenes, but right out front...so I hope someone, anyone...asks her if she agrees that Bush made this hurricane, and then directed it at the poorest blackest people on the coast...
Because that is what this is all about...this no nothing HICK from Texas, that they say is too stupid to put a sentence together, managed that...WOW.
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Going to the Whitehouse to protest, thats a great way to use resources as people are still trapped in the South.
If they start this sort of thing, they will lose the sympathy and support of a great portion of America. Why can't they just be thankful they are alive, and realize if anyone let them down, it was their democrat state government?
they couldn't get the POOR out of their own city, but they can fly to DC to pull a Sheehan? How pathetic. If they can afford to do that, I hope they don't get one damned dime from the Feds, Red Cross, Salvation Army or any other relief group
"I hate to keep repeating this but Karl Rove is brilliant!"
Do you think he's brilliant enough to secure OUR borders? So far he hasn't shown it.
If liberals had any respect for these people, they wouldn't do such things.
give 'em hell, hoodlum!
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