Harry Reid: “Katrina makes it clear this government has failed.”
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From the Senate floor:
Mr. President, there are many things we don t yet know about the government s response to Katrina, but two things are clear to us all: the federal government s response was unacceptable and the victims and all Americans deserve to know why.
Following 9/11, preparedness for national emergencies was supposed to be a priority for this government. Americans were made to believe the government was doing everything it could to prepare for terrorist attacks, natural disasters, and other national crises.
Katrina makes it clear this government has failed.
We must find out why immediately to make sure the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina never happens again. When we faced a similar situation after September 11, Democrats and Republicans came together and established an independent, blue-ribbon Commission.
Republicans now apparently want a different approach. Yesterday, the Republicans unveiled their proposal to investigate the events of last week. They called it a “bipartisan commission.”
Although I have no details on this proposal, what little I do know raises serious concerns about whether their proposal will provide Americans the answers they deserve.
One, it s not bi-partisan. An investigation of the Republican Administration by a Republican-controlled Congress is like having a pitcher call his own balls and strikes.
Second, it does not provide a role for committees. We have a committee structure in place to investigate matters like this. After 9/11, these committees played a key role in investigating events. We have excellent chairmen and ranking members in the Senate, and they should be permitted to exercise their responsibilities.
Finally, we have seen what happens when this administration or any administration – investigates itself. The American people will not get the real answers they deserve.
These are serious concerns about the Republican approach. Americans deserve answers independent of politics. That s why Democrats and Republicans preferred an independent commission for investigating 9/11, and we should be following that model now.
We must simply not accept the coverup. If they’re going to hold a dog and pony show, Democrats must stand up and deny them legitimacy.
27 Responses to “Harry Reid: “Katrina makes it clear this government has failed.””
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© 2000-2011 Oliver Willis
Wasn’t it the 9/11 Commission that suggested the Department of Homeland Security? In fact, weren’t you one of those taking the President to task for resisting creating such a behemoth bureaucracy?
By the way- Senator Landrieu doesn’t seem to think of FEMA as first responders as much as you do.
DISASTER ASSISTANCE
Emergency management operations for disasters include three phases: preparedness, response, and recovery. In the preparedness phase, state and local governments administer emergency preparedness programs with ongoing activities to help ensure that they are ready to respond to disasters. The Louisiana Department of Emergency Preparedness is responsible for all initial damage assessment prior to federal involvement.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) partially funds disaster assistance and emergency preparedness programs. Victims whose immediate needs are not met by voluntary relief organizations, such as the Red Cross and the Salvation Army, can register with FEMA.
But I don’t suppose that matters when you are playing for politics. By the way, Oliver- if this disaster is proof to you that we should be electing Democrats at the federal level, is it also proof that we should be electing Republicans at the local and State level. I mean, the mistakes by Nagin and the Governor… especially the Governor…
Hey, let the investigation go everywhere it needs to. No surprise that when you hear “investigation” you immediately think “protect the President.” There was a time when Republicans put country before their president’s approval ratings. Obviously that time has passed.
Especially the Governor!!!
Did you hear the one about the Red Cross being forbidden from bringing food and water to the Superdome and Convention Center the day after the storm hit? You will.
(But I’m sure you will ignore it. It was the Governor’s crew who did that one. The same way she wouldn’t mobilize the National Guard that were standing by- but you’ve ignored that too.)
Let’s see if this bi-partisan investigation can obscure the truth and muscle all opponents into the ditch again. Give ‘em Hell Harry !!!
I am in no way defending Brown, as I prefer to wait and see how the facts play out after the immediate processes are completed. However, I did not hear anyone complaining about him being a crony when he was appointed, not during the times that he and his agency presided over other natural disasters.
Oliver, will you stand with your Democratic Gov and Mayor of NO and accept THEIR responsibility for THEIR failures, to include DENYING the Red Cross from giving available food and water to refugees in the Superdome?
Somehow, I doubt you will.
That should be interesting.
I don’t know very much about emergency management procedures. Much of my perception of who was in charge was formed from interviews with FEMA and DHS officials who kept saying “We’re getting food in” or “We’re evacuating people” in the first days after the storm.
Not hearing complaints earlier — you guys always find a way to blame liberals, don’t you? At least you admit he is an incompetent, and admit he was only hired because he was Joe Allbaugh’s old college roommate.
But it’s clear, Pyle, that you want everyone to accept responsibility for this fuck up BUT Bush. Just address one issue: why is it okay for Bush to have appointed a crony like Michael Brown to head FEMA? How is that defensible.
JD, Floridians were calling for Brown to resign last year. What! You mean LGF and Powerline never mentioned it?!? It’s almost as if… they’re whores for the Republican party! Hey, just like you!
“Brown, a patronage appointee with no previous disaster management experience, embarrassed himself last year with his attempts to justify FEMA’s waste of more than $31 million in hurricane relief given to areas not affected by a hurricane. After a South Florida Sun-Sentinel investigation exposed the waste, the newspaper called for Brown to be fired. It now repeats that call.”
If Louisiana state government has been in charge the whole time and responsible for delivering food and water, what the heck was Chertoff yammering about on NPR?
If DHS isn’t in charge, who is he calling “we”?
JD, after other hurricanes, FEMA showed up after the lights came back on, dropped off a few bushel baskets full of cash, and went back to their fancy Georgetown apartments.
This hurricane was different for many reasons, the most important being that it was a continuing disaster with an ongoing need for organization and leadership.
Also, within the past couple of years, FEMA was folded into DHS, and the scope of its involvement in responding to disaster changed.
Brown may have been an adequate administrator to cut some checks, but he has failed this challenge.
Oliver will never criticize a fellow Democrat, unless he judges that Democrat to be insufficiently crass when it comes to criticizing Bush and the Republican Party.
To Oliver, that’s the ONLY qualification that pleases him in a Democrat.
Oliver reminds me more every day of the character of Jack from “Lord of the Flies,” you know the one, who when freed from the constraints of civil society, shouts chants like “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!”
Tuco loves his comic book adaptations of classic books. But when it comes to explaining why it’s okay for Bush to appoint cronies and hacks to head up the Federal disaster relief agencies, he has nothing to say.
Fixed:
I explained to you in another thread how Brown got his job:
Bush nominated him and the Senate including Democrats supported his nomination.
He was confirmed by a voice vote. Do you know what that means?
It means not a single Democrat stood in opposition to his nomination.
Do you mean to tell me that you admire these useful tools who kiss a guy s ass one year, and then belatedly discover let s see, years later, and ,oh, only after a major disaster that he has no qualifications.
Yet you continue to insist that it s all because one man nominated one other man.
When you will ever get it?
And I,/i> explained to you that the transcript you keep referring to was for a different job than Brown currently holds in an agency that wasn’t yet part of DHS.
When will you ever stop trying to fool the other commenters here?
The Daily Howler nails blogs like this one:
If there was a hearing. Was there? You don’t know.
And deputy director is not director.
Occam’s Razor. If there was a smoking gun in a Michael Brown hearing, someone would have exposed it by now.
But, look what I’m doing. I’m allowing you to divert attention from the Democrat’s performance at Brown’s confirmation hearing as a Deputy Director.
That’s my point.
You don’t know if there was a hearing. You can’t tell us if there’s a transcript. But that doesn’t stop you from claiming that nobody raised any questions.
Is there an actual point that you’re trying to make? The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs only has hearing transcripts available through 2002.
So, if there was a subsequent hearing, I can’t point you to it. But what do you think it will reveal. That the Democrats in the Senate didn’t kiss his ass a second time?
Even if Democrats were lying down on the job, as you claim, how does it get Bush off the hook? All it does is put certain Democrats, in a limited way, on the hook with him. But he’s still the largest fish ON the hook, no? This is no defense at all, just a dodge, Tuco, even if I take your assertions at face value.
And, of course, if any Democratic senator questioned his qualifications, he’d immediately be labeled and “obstructionist” out to “Bork” the Presiden’t nominee.
Bottom line, after all the money and all the DHS reorganization, we’re weren’t prepared to deal with a predicted disaster. Chalk up yet another abject failure for W.
Now, Time magazine discovers that Brown’s official bio is fake.
No, I didn’t hear about the Red Cross being forbidden from bringing food and water to the Superdome and Convention Center the day after the storm hit.
According to Marty Evans, Red Cross President and CEO: