How fucked up can this administration be? Did you know it's National Preparedness Month brought to you by Homeland Insecurity? It would be a joke if people weren't dead because of the incompetence of this administration. I've been following this disaster all day. I'm depressed and pissed. When are the people in this country going to throw these bufoons out?

Email attributed to NOLA rescue worker; economics of disaster

The poorest 20% (you can argue with the number -- 10%? 18%? no one knows) of the city was left behind to drown. This was the plan. Forget the sanctimonious bullshit about the bullheaded people who wouldn't leave. The evacuation plan was strictly laissez-faire. It depended on privately owned vehicles, and on having ready cash to fund an evacuation. The planners knew full well that the poor, who in new orleans are overwhelmingly black, wouldn't be able to get out. The resources -- meaning, the political will -- weren't there to get them out.

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Left Behind

The last twelve hours of news coverage has been nearly overwhelming. Anderson Cooper, Paula Zahn, others, even unapologetic partisans like Joe Scarborough and Tucker Carlson -- everyone is asking where the government is. (No, I haven't turned to Fox News. I don't have the heart, today.) Anderson Cooper lost it interviewing Sen. Mary Landrieu, countering her litany of thank-yous to a series of politicians with his own encounter with rats eating a body that had been left abandoned in the street for over 48 hours. Paula Zahn boggled at FEMA director Michael Brown's declaration that the reason about 15,000 shelter seekers at the New Orleans Convention Center have gone without food or water since the day of the hurricane is because FEMA didn't even know the refugees were there until today.

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The price of failure
by Steve Gilliard

George Bush has failed. He has failed his office, he has failed the people of New Orleans, who he was elected to serve. But most of all, he has failed the country. This is not what Americans expect people to do in Bosnia. If Bosnians had been treated like the citizens of New Orleans, Americans would have been outraged. Wes Clark would have been retired in disgrace. It would have been a national disgrace. Americans would have been shamed to have failed the people of Bonsia so badly. Yet the American bitter-enders, Goldberg, Limbaugh and Hannity, see no problem with Americans dying in the streets in an American city. This is a national disgrace, a failure of imagination and leadership as bad as Bull Run. The weakness of Bush and his insanely incompetent leadership is murdering people as slowly and cruelly as the Serbs did. The anguish of the people is painful to watch.

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People should go to jail for this. There is no fucking excuse. Too many links to put up. Here are some sites that give good links:

Daily KOS

Eschaton

The News Blog (Steve Gilliard)

Culture of Life News

MSNBC

Read them and weep.