ebonlock: (Tinkerbell)
[personal profile] ebonlock
For those interested, Think Progress has posted a Katrina timeline, one hopes a few of the t.v. talking heads will stumble upon it and use it to refute GOP spin, but we shall see.

And you'll just love this:

FEMA puts firefighters to work -- as props for Bush

From all across the nation, local fire departments have sent firefighters -- many of them trained in emergency medicine and search-and-rescue techniques -- to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina. The Federal Emergency Management Agency requested the help. But when the firefighters arrived in Atlanta, loaded down with the firefighting gear FEMA told them to bring, they were sent to a hotel to wait. Some of them have been waiting for three or four days now. Some have been assigned to sit through an eight-hour class on topics that included sexual harassment. And some have been dispatched to the disaster area to work as human props behind George W. Bush as he toured the destruction.

We've said this before lately, and we'll say it again: We're not making this up.

As the Los Angeles Times reports, "Hundreds of firefighters who volunteered to help rescue victims of Hurricane Katrina have instead been playing cards, taking classes on the Federal Emergency Management Agency's history and lounging at an Atlanta airport hotel for days. 'On the news every night you hear [hurricane victims say], "How come everybody forgot us?"' said Joseph Manning, a firefighter from Washington, Pa. 'We didn't forget. We're stuck in Atlanta drinking beer.'"

Well, not just drinking beer. The Salt Lake Tribune reports that FEMA put a team of 50 firefighters on a flight to Louisiana Monday morning. Their mission: Stand beside Bush as he toured the devastation -- just possibly not the best use for highly trained emergency workers, and a job we thought was obsolete in the digital age anyway.

[...]

On Monday, the Tribune says, some firefighters began to take off their FEMA-issued T-shirts in protest. A FEMA spokesman responded by questioning the firefighters' willingness to help in a time of need. "I would go back and ask the firefighter to revisit his commitment to FEMA, to firefighting and to the citizens of this country," FEMA spokeswoman Mary Hudak told the Tribune.

Date: 2005-09-07 05:55 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tattermuffin.livejournal.com
'Coz this is the sort of thing I think you'd appreciate, below's a link to this morning's White House press conference. It's almost laugh out loud funny, except for the fact that it's true, not a skit for Saturday Night Live.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001055403

Date: 2005-09-07 06:29 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ebonlock.livejournal.com
I can't blame the admin for going with what works for them, keep telling people that accountability is just a "blame game" and that someday in the not too distant future someone will be called to task for this fuck up. Anyone who doesn't accept this non-answer is called a partisan obstructionist, "playing politics" while people are dying. Then months later when the public's attention has waned, tell anyone still screaming for answers that they're "living in the past" and that we have to "look forward". Bush can then talk about how he has to get on with his life...

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