Repubs screw up New Orleans, again

[TOVisitor]

Oh we all remember how the Shrub said he would move heaven and earth to make New Orleans whole again.

Looks like it's just more Repub corruption, cronyism, and incompetence.

La. governor outraged over faulty pumps
By CAIN BURDEAU, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 30 minutes ago

NEW ORLEANS - Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco lashed out at the Army Corps of Engineers on Wednesday for installing defective pumps at three major drainage canals just before the start of last summer's hurricane season.

"This could put a lot of our people in jeopardy," Blanco said. "It begs the question: Are we really safe?"

She called for a congressional investigation into how the Corps allowed it to happen.

Citing internal documents, The Associated Press reported Tuesday that the Corps installed the 34 pumps last year in a rush to fix the city's flood defenses, despite warnings from one of its experts that the machinery was defective and likely to fail in a storm.

At the same time, the Corps, the White House and state officials were telling residents that it was safe to come back to New Orleans, which was devastated in August 2005 when Hurricane Katrina breached the city's floodwalls.

On Wednesday, Donald Powell, the administration's Gulf Coast hurricane recovery czar, said that he was never shown the memo, and that assurances he made that New Orleans was as safe as or safer than it was before Katrina were based on information he got from the Corps.

"We were asking the Corps to do the job as fast as possible to get the condition of the levee back to make it as safe as possible," Powell said. "That was the primary goal above all goals — safety in the region."

Becaue the 2006 hurricane season was mild, the new pumps were never put to the test.

Ready? Now get this.

The Corps and the politically connected manufacturer of the equipment, Moving Water Industries Corp. of Deerfield Beach, Fla., are still struggling to get the 34 pumps, designed and built under a $26.6 million contract, working properly.

<SNIP>
MWI is owned by J. David Eller and his sons. Eller was once a business partner of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in a venture called Bush-El that marketed MWI pumps. And Eller has donated about $128,000 to politicians, the vast majority of it to the Republican Party, since 1996, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

The U.S. Justice Department sued MWI in 2002, accusing it of fraudulently helping Nigeria obtain $74 million in taxpayer-backed loans for overpriced and unnecessary water-pump equipment. The case has yet to be resolved.

So tell us papa, OTB, and all you other Shrub sycophants. When exactly does your outrage meter go haywire at any time other than when you are salivating over the prospect of calling Hillary "fat"?

 

[onthebottom]

Perhaps she should reflect on the reasons why there is no reconstruction plan for NO yet.......

OTB

 

[Aardvark154]

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco lashed out at the Army Corps of Engineers

When exactly does your outrage meter go haywire at any time other than when you are salivating over the prospect of calling Hillary "fat"?

TV, I must have missed that set of classes. So. please tell me when it was that Officers in the United State Army, and specifically those serving in the Corps of Engineers started directing their allegence to the President personally, rather than to serving the United States of America?* Or in the Canadian context when Officers stopped serving the Queen and started serving the Prime Minister?

In other words when did SNAFUs became conspiracies.

* To refresh your memory:

"I, _____ having been appointed an officer in the Army of the United States, as indicated above in the grade of _____ do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God."

 

[Aardvark154]

Perhaps she should reflect on the reasons why there is no reconstruction plan for NO yet.......

Or the inconvenient fact that it took until last October for something to be done about the cesspool that was the Orleans Levee Board*. Which was accurately described by the Associated Press as “one of the generations-old agencies whose politically appointed members failed to maintain the levees and floodwalls that protected the city.” And surprise, surprise the President of the United States had nothing to do with appointing members of the Levee Board, among those who did (shock, horror) were: The Governor of Louisiana, and the Mayor of New Orleans. Isn’t it peculiar how neither one of them wants to discuss that fact - so much easier to assign ALL the blame to Washington.

And, of course, no one wants to talk about the real problem: that the Mississippi for over a century has been an artificial canal, which in many places thanks to building in flood plains and the building of Levee’s is now higher than the surrounding land and which really wants to capture the Atchafalaya and take a much shorter path to the sea.**

* Since January first of this year, there are now two regional levee boards one for each bank of the river in the New Orleans area the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority - East and Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority - West Bank.

** There is a well written discussion of the Mississippi - Atchafalaya problem in John McPhee’s The Control of Nature.

 

[MarkII]

Despite all the nit picking on specifics TOV has a point.

Mr Bush Jr declared, paraphrasing. that New Orleans would rise and be rebuilt and the might of the US would be behind the city and it's residents.

Clearly that hasn't happened.

I have a client that is in the hardest hit areas of that storm season. Lake Charles LA and Beaumont Texas. The devastation still remains to this day.

New Orleans had the most affected people but not the majority of devastation. One of the local papers in Lake Charles published a book called Surviving Rita. A lot of the pictures are side by side shots one year later and absolutely nothing has changed.

Millions were wasted in the aftermath. To be fair it was almost to be expected. The federal Gov. and FEMA rushed a plan to get money into the hands of those that needed it most and that was abused.

To leave after the weather cleared and set up committees to investigate was wrong. It did not take a committee to see what needed to be done.

I'm usually pretty fair with bureaucracy in making decisions as there are many areas that need to be considered before making permanent solutions.

In Louisiana's case that truly have been forgotten. It is the opinion of many who live in that area that the amount of corruption in LA politics has been their demise. Who do you really trust locally, state and federal?

Bottom line is, George promised to fix the city of New Orleans and the devastated areas of LA and that has not happened. It has been too long to say..we're still working on it.

TOV has a point. Don't bog it down in not picking.

 

[TOVisitor]

In other words when did SNAFUs became conspiracies.

Oh dear. Clearly someone has NOT been paying attention the past six years.

What some of us has learned is that no matter how bad it seems at first glance, it really is worse.

Now, your sweet words about pledging to support and defend the Constitution has been shown to be a sham just this week -- just look at the politicized firings of US Attorneys, which Abu Gonzales had originally said was a "minor personnel matter." Now he says that "mistakes were made."

Isn't that just lovely? The party of personal responsibility using the passive voice again.

Weasels.

Oh and PS, the politically connected incompetents and thieves from MWI seem to get a pass from OTB and Aadrvark.

How nice. More of that IOKIYAR stuff, I suppose.

 

[papasmerf]

tov

as i recall you walked away from the US and did tha many years ago. I hate to break it to you but States have the resposibilty to its citizens. Now if memeroy serves the pumps in question are being rebuilt.

 

[Aardvark154]

Now, your sweet words about pledging to support and defend the Constitution has been shown to be a sham just this week

My “sweet words” have specifically to do with your implications that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers deliberately installed faulty pumps, and that somehow having been transformed into a Presidential Pretorian Guard, they did so at the behest of the President.

 

[LancsLad]

I'm just waiting for tov to state that this " is just another example of the Man keeping the black man down". That convenient little quip will eventually be floated by some lib/lefty when all their other whining fails to get anyone to care.

 

[papasmerf]

I'm just waiting for tov to state that this " is just another example of the Man keeping the black man down". That convenient little quip will eventually be floated by some lib/lefty when all their other whining fails to get anyone to care.

tov should come back to the country he abandoned. He seems to think he has all the answers yet he does nothing to make them happen but whine.

 

[danmand]

I'm just waiting for tov to state that this " is just another example of the Man keeping the black man down". That convenient little quip will eventually be floated by some lib/lefty when all their other whining fails to get anyone to care.

If none of the liberals will do it, one of us conservatives
will have to say it: The response to Katrina would have
been different, if Katrina had hit Long Island. And I don't
believe it would have made much difference if the democrats
had been in power.

 

[papasmerf]

If none of the liberals will do it, one of us conservatives
will have to say it: The response to Katrina would have
been different, if Katrina had hit Long Island. And I don't
believe it would have made much difference if the democrats
had been in power.

You might have a point.......The politicians here would not have kept FEMA out as long as they did. Get with the facts.........The FEDS can not come in unless they are asked.

 

[danmand]

You might have a point.......The politicians here would not have kept FEMA out as long as they did. Get with the facts.........The FEDS can not come in unless they are asked.

It is comforting to hear that the FEMA organization worked well.
I just have one question: Why was the head of FEMA fired?

 

[papasmerf]

It is comforting to hear that the FEMA organization worked well.
I just have one question: Why was the head of FEMA fired?

That's easy......He didn't have the balls to stand up and show how poorly the governor and mayor did.

 

[danmand]

That's easy......He didn't have the balls to stand up and show how poorly the governor and mayor did.

OK, then he deserved to be fired. Farking liberal.

 

[papasmerf]

OK, then he deserved to be fired. Farking liberal.

in this case he did.

 

[Never Compromised]

Why would anyone want to build below sea level, beside the sea?

Let the sea and the gators have it. They are going to get it back sooner or later, might as well save a few billion and let them have it now.

 

[papasmerf]

Why would anyone want to build below sea level, beside the sea?

Let the sea and the gators have it. They are going to get it back sooner or later, might as well save a few billion and let them have it now.

We have a romantic attachment to the city. It is unique and an icon.

 

[danmand]

PS: How did a liberal get hired as head of FEMA?

 

[papasmerf]

PS: How did a liberal get hired as head of FEMA?

I figure it was a Senate approval.