My Rant: Are The Heads Just Beginning to Roll? "Off with his head!"
Posted on Wed Sep 14, 2005 at 05:10:17 AM EST
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by Last Night in Little Rock
CNN.com last night posted this story: 'People making decisions hesitated' / More officials' jobs may fall to Katrina response criticism with a video link to who knew what and when before Katrina struck.
And Michael Brown's magnanimous resignation is not the first.
Even after Brown's resignation as head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, criticism of the government's response to the disaster keeps rising.
It threatens to swamp other officials involved in the recovery effort. Blame is being directed at every level of government--federal, state and local
As new details emerge on what happened behind the scenes as the storm ravaged New Orleans, it is becoming clear that government officials knew what to expect, despite claims to the contrary. (Watch the video that documents what officials knew and who warned them--3:28) [active link]
They had planned and trained for it for five days last year, playing out the disastrous scenarios of a hypothetical Hurricane Pam. But when the real disaster stuck, they appeared to be paralyzed.
Bush's first appointee to head the Federal Emergency Mismanagement Agency, Joe Allbaugh, called it "an oversized entitlement program." Not when hurricanes struck Florida, where FEMA rode in to attempt to prove it had some value. But, Florida was a state in contention then, and the Bush Crime Family needed to shore up support for Republicans.
Safely re-elected, the Paleo-Con's could allow FEMA to crumble into disuse, except where Florida is concerned where Bro Jeb is Governor.
Surprise: A real disaster occurs. And this is not just any disaster. It is one that was expected, planned for, and ignored. And then government, at every level, comes off looking like unprepared fools. FEMA, who "gamed" and planned for this very disaster just blew it as far as protecting "we the people," but it did a fine job of funneling cost-plus contracts to cronies as noted here and here. Halliburton will clean up, thank you. At least the Administration was prepared to help out somebody: their friends. And VP Cheney still owns a lot of stock in Halliburton.
The "don't play the blame game" mantra is still being played by the Administration, because they know they are heavily at fault. How can the people not play the "blame game" when their lives are destroyed? How can a citizen of this country with a scintilla of conscience not "play the blame game" in the face of either stupidity or venality or both? Outrage does not even begin to describe what the people feel.
How can a country that felt so vulnerable after 9/11, a country which had its inner strength and desire to avenge a crime of the worst magnitude manipulated by George Bush into believing in his ability to protect us from terrorists to rise up to his spurious war against "terrorists," suddenly feel stripped naked again by the incompetence of the Administration? It was all a charade. "I'm a uniter, not a divider," he said, as he built the foundation for division.
The facts remain that the Admininstration knew about the threat from Al-Qaeda and Katrina and did nothing to protect us or mitigate the damage from either. We remain vulnerable because of the pea-brained thinking that says that FEMA is an "oversized entitlement program," apparently for the rich and not the citizenry. We are at risk of something worse happening, and we see no proof that we can protect ourselves from anything or anybody, including those amongst us who would harm us: The Administration itself.
Looting the Army Corps of Engineers budget for the NOLA levee projects for tax cuts for the rich and funding the War in Iraq while knowing the NOLA disaster scenario is so Machiavellian, so despicable, that it warrants impeachment for dereliction of duty.
But can the Republican House be expected to do it? After all, Congress had to pass the BS budget that the President presented, and the Republicans were all too willing to go along and reward their wealthy contributors at the expense of the people.
It is beyond bizarre that lying about fellatio is an impeachable offense while utter stupidity, venality, and outright dereliction of duty in the face of national crisis apparently is not. Maladministration was an impeachable offense at common law, and so was "procuring office for persons who were unfit and unworthy of them." Raoul Berger, Impeachment: The Constitutional Problems 63-67 (1973). George Bush is impeachable, but few are saying it. Republicans are scared to because they are afraid of the Bush Crime Family. But George Bush is now permanently damaged goods, and the clean up should include him.
"Off with his head!" (King Richard, Act III, Sc. iv, l. 75) Off with all their heads. None of you are worthy of leading.
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