Free Republic

Oprah Winfrey on Tuesday devoted the first of two shows to the wake of Hurricane Katrina, saying: "I think ... this country owes these people an apology" – referring to the survivors for their treatment after the disaster struck and to those who were left to die as help failed to arrive. "This makes me so mad. This should not have happened," said a tearful Winfrey, who wore a gas mask inside New Orleans' now-vacated Superdome, where she was overcome by the stench. "Nothing I saw on television prepared me for what I experienced on the ground," she said on...

Washington, DC - DNC Chairman Howard Dean released the following statement in response to President Bush's travel today to Louisiana amid reports that his Administration is now enacting a political strategy to address criticisms raised over his Administration's failure to respond to hurricane Katrina: "Based on today’s reports, it seems clear that President Bush’s visit today is just another callous political move crafted by Karl Rove. It’s just appalling to see how quickly President Bush and Karl Rove have mobilized a political strategy in their own defense, but simply failed to mobilize a swift response to either keep the people...

September 23, 2004 Pierce Received American Citizenship at the US District Court House in Los Angeles Pierce later commented on his decision to become a citizen: "What's at stake? This is my first election as a U.S. citizen. I came to America 23 years ago and never looked back. My appreciation for the heart and soul of America comes from living here for 23 years, having 3 American born children and an American wife. When I came here as a young man I felt embraced by a landscape of people and a community where any dream you had in your...

September 6, 2005 President George W. Bush The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 20500 Dear President Bush: I am writing to renew my request that you remove Michael D. Brown, Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Emergency Preparedness and Response from his current position at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). When I first called for Under Secretary Brown's replacement, in the aftermath of Hurricanes Frances, it was undeniable that Under Secretary Brown had been responsible for a massive misallocation of recovery aid funds. Given the federal government's weak response in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and...

AFL-CIO Chief Criticizes Federal Response to Hurricane, Calls It Sign of Hostility to WorkersBy Jeremiah Marquez Associated Press Writer Published: Sep 5, 2005 LOS ANGELES (AP) - AFL-CIO President John Sweeney derided the Bush administration's handling of Hurricane Katrina at a Labor Day rally Monday, saying the government's slow response was a sign of hostility to workers. Speaking to more than 1,000 cheering teachers, firefighters and nurses at a Los Angeles intersection, Sweeney argued that cuts in government services and taxes had sapped the administration's ability to react to the crisis. "We really need look no further than the ravaged...

Video: "Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said it all, starting his news briefing Saturday afternoon: "Louisiana is a city that is largely underwater..." Well there's your problem right there. If ever a slip-of-the-tongue defined a government's response to a crisis, this was it..."

NOW 'Outraged' Over Roberts Pick Following is a statement by National Organization for Women President Kim Gandy on the nomination of John Roberts to chief justice: "The National Organization for Women has been outspoken in our opposition to the nomination of an anti-women's rights, anti-civil rights judge, John G. Roberts, to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. Now that Roberts' attitudes toward women have been revealed, it is an outrage and an insult to the women of this country that George W. Bush has nominated such a jurist to be Chief Justice of the United States. Story Continues Below "First,...

Novelist Anne Rice (search) harshly criticized the response to Hurricane Katrina's aftermath in her old hometown of New Orleans (search). "Why did America ask a city cherished by millions and excoriated by some, but ignored by no one, to fight for its own life for so long? That's my question," Rice wrote in a New York Times op-ed piece published Sunday. Rice, author of the "Vampire Chronicles" books including "Interview with the Vampire," said people have asked her in recent days why so many people stayed behind when they knew the hurricane was coming. "They didn't have any place to...

BLAMING THE LOCALS: That's the Bush strategy. And the local authorities did indeed fail badly with respect to mobilizing resources to evacuate the poorer parts of the threatened city while they still could. No criticism I've made of the federal response should be inferred to say I think the locals performed well. They didn't. But a disaster of this magnitude is obviously beyond the scope of a single mayor or governor. And it became clear very quickly to anyone with a modem or a TV that a disaster was happening. The federal officials are on record denying the calamity even...

<p>2008 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton blasted the Bush administration on Sunday for what she said was its inadequate response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster, and called for a "Katrina Commission" to investigate allegations of bungling.</p> <p>"The slow pace of relief efforts in the face of a mounting death toll ... seems to confirm that our ability to respond to cataclysmic disasters has not been adequately addressed," Clinton said, in quotes picked up by the New York Daily News. "It has become increasingly evident that our nation was not prepared," she charged in a bid to paint the White House as asleep at the wheel.</p>

WASHINGTON - (KRT) - With many blaming the growing scope of Katrina's devastation on the Bush administration, Sen. Hillary Clinton called Sunday for a 9/11-style probe into how the federal government responded to the crisis. "It has become increasingly evident that our nation was not prepared," Clinton, D-N.Y., said in a letter to Bush asking him to set up a "Katrina Commission."

This is a review of the performance of George W. Bush in tight times in this nation. It might explain the single solitary most catastrophic collapse of American government in all of our times. Mark ye well. This was the week when we turned a major American city into Haiti, and racism put its hand out and started to choke a nation, and it may not let go. With the water coming from the sky and the bottom of the sea, driving with such ferocity that a major American city, New Orleans, followed its face into the water, George W....

New Orleans' local newspaper, the Times-Picayune, is blasting President Bush for his handling of response to Hurricane Katrina, and is calling for heads to roll within his administration. "Every official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be fired, Director Michael Brown especially," the paper states today in an open letter to Bush in its print edition.

Two German TV stations are apparently claiming that Bush's visit to N.O was basically a staged event: bulldozers and the like were brought in just for his visit, bodies were moved, etc. Can someone provide translations and state the actual charges and what evidence is given? http://www.heute.de/ZDFmediathek/inhalt/23/0,4070,2370903-5,00.html http://www.heute.de/ZDFheute/inhalt/23/0,3672,2370967,00.html http://www.tagesschau.de/video/0,1315,OID4700936_RESreal256_PLYinternal_NAV_BAB,00.html the last is supposedly translated here: http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2005/9/3/22494/85287/77#77 This is discussed here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harry-shearer/potemkinitis_b_6795.html You also might want to spend some time reading the other entries at the HuffPost. That site has two sides: blog ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/ ) and news (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thenewswire/). On the news side, comments are posted immediately and don't seem to...

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Sunday that the federal government's handling of Hurricane Katrina has been "inadequate," and said more aid, including police officers and firefighters, was en route to Louisiana. The Republican mayor, who usually treads carefully when it comes to commenting on the Bush administration, told reporters that the president himself was aware of the government's failings. "It would appear, and I think the president acknowledged, that the federal government's response has been inadequate," Bloomberg told reporters at City Hall. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said 150 police officers, plus support vehicles, were to leave for the region Monday, in...

DEAUVILLE, France (AFP) - Pierce Brosnan lobbed sharp criticism at President George W. Bush for his environmental policies and his handling of the hurricane catastrophe in the United States. "This man called President Bush has a lot to answer for," the former James Bond actor told journalists as he presented his latest movie at a French festival of US film in this Normandy resort town. "I don't know if this man is really taking care of America," Brosnan said Saturday. He was responding to a question about the Bush administration's response to Hurrican Katrina, which has wreaked massive destruction and...

CARRBORO -- Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink and a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, will be the featured speaker at a fundraising event for the NC Peace & Justice Coalition at the ArtsCenter Sept. 16. The event, titled, "Send the Youth to DC, Not Iraq," begins at 8 p.m. It's designed to raise money to help send 2000 North Carolinians to an anti-war march in Washington. The performance lineup of musicians, dancers and poets includes MC Pandemonium, Boxcar Bertha and The Fruit of Labor Singing Ensemble Tickets are $12 for adults, $5 for students, and are on sale mow at...

Rep. Gary Ackerman blasted President Bush on Saturday for his handling of the New Orleans hurricane disaster, even as most elected Democrats kept political gamesmanship on hold. "The leadership of the president - and this has nothing to do with [him] being a Republican, it just has to do with, I believe, the whole administration including the president - has been totally inept," Ackerman told WABC Radio. The New York Democrat predicted that Congress "will have a lot of hearings" on the Katrina disaster. Ackerman was troubled, he said, by an apparent connection between the administration's slow response and the...

Celine Dion is hysterical!!

Wexler: Bush Administration's Response to Hurricane Katrina a Disgrace (Washington, D.C.) - Today, Congressman Robert Wexler (D-FL) issued the following statement from the floor of the House of Representatives in response to President George Bush's failed handling in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina: Mr. Speaker: Like all Americans, my heart goes out to the millions of people displaced and suffering from one of the largest national catastrophe in our nation's history. I hope all the victims of Hurricane Katrina know that our prayers are with them in this most difficult hour. I strongly support today's initial aid package to help...