GPV
Member
[font=Verdana, Arial] Americans, here are some places where you can quickly fill out email forms and send some notices to your Senators and Representatives and the media in a hurry. If you need a letter to send you can use the example below (note you may also want to ask why there are so many no-bid sweetheart contracts being handed out to companies like Kellogg, Brown, and Root and Halliburton. http://ga3.org/campaign/howdarethey ):
http://moveon.org/
[/font]http://tools.democracyforamerica.com/petition/katrina
[font=Verdana, Arial] http://www.workingforchange.com/act...fm?itemid=19560
http://capwiz.com/fconl/issues/aler...8002046&type=CO
Below is a sample letter that you can use as a model to send either to the Congress or to the media.
At no time should a person who is accused of wrongdoing investigate himself, yet this is exactly what George W. Bush is proposing to do in light of the terrible recovery and assistance response after hurricane Katrina. And bipartisan efforts to investigate are also out of order, since bipartisan committees oversaw Homeland Security, which oversaw the now-gutted and crippled FEMA which had been folded into it.
Homeland Security is the first responder in national disasters, why was it one of the last groups to show up? The media was able to get in there, as were celebrities, surely rescue teams could as well. And as for shots fired, our National Guard comes under heavier fire every day in Iraq, surely they could manage the small amounts of gunfire from hysterical people trying to get their attention?
Why did the president not act sooner when implored by the Gulf State governors to send assistance both for evacuation and rescue efforts? (The famed flooded New Orleans school buses were useless to the mayor for evacuation purposes without drivers and federally-approved destinations; responsibilities that fall squarely in FEMAs lap.) A single phone call from the president from the Oval Office, or Air Force One, or the Senators birthday party in Arizona, or the Naval Base Coronado after he finished strumming the guitar he received would have sufficed. NorthCom was in place and ready to serve, but the president did not request their aid. He knew that a disaster of this magnitude was possible based on the test scenario called Hurricane Pam, the warnings from the under-funded Army Corps of engineers about the levees in New Orleans, and the alerts explaining the dire consequences of Katrina from NOAA; he cannot claim ignorance of the impending calamity.
Why did the president hand out positions like Head of Homeland Security and the three top positions in FEMA to people who had no disaster management experience that would make them valuable in such placements? Are former political campaign managers and horse association attorneys who embellish their résumés the best the President can muster for these all-important jobs? What good are emergency officers who were so out of touch with the situation on the ground that they didnt find out for DAYS that there were thousands of people trapped at the New Orleans Convention Center? Some heck of a job. Mr. Bush had nothing but high praise for former director James Lee Witt, why didnt he keep the man on the job?
Why did the president stall on the acceptance of or flat out refuse international assistance? Why was the U.S.S. Bataan sent to the gulf only to sit there and watch helplessly from the waters as it awaited the call to action? FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security appear to have been instructed to reject help from people all over the United States. For what? Pride? Red tape? A misunderstanding of how very bad the situation in the gulf turned out to be?
Now the president is rumored to be thinking of passing more tax cuts. It was bad enough to do it during a time of war, but with the Gulf disaster stacked on top of that there is no justificationnonefor cutting taxes at this time.
But there is every justification to demand an independent investigation. After 9/11/2001 we were promised that our nation would be made safer, our emergency responses made more efficient and streamlined. They werent. Someone dropped the ball and it landed smack dab on the Gulf Coast.[/font]
http://moveon.org/
[/font]http://tools.democracyforamerica.com/petition/katrina
[font=Verdana, Arial] http://www.workingforchange.com/act...fm?itemid=19560
http://capwiz.com/fconl/issues/aler...8002046&type=CO
Below is a sample letter that you can use as a model to send either to the Congress or to the media.
At no time should a person who is accused of wrongdoing investigate himself, yet this is exactly what George W. Bush is proposing to do in light of the terrible recovery and assistance response after hurricane Katrina. And bipartisan efforts to investigate are also out of order, since bipartisan committees oversaw Homeland Security, which oversaw the now-gutted and crippled FEMA which had been folded into it.
Homeland Security is the first responder in national disasters, why was it one of the last groups to show up? The media was able to get in there, as were celebrities, surely rescue teams could as well. And as for shots fired, our National Guard comes under heavier fire every day in Iraq, surely they could manage the small amounts of gunfire from hysterical people trying to get their attention?
Why did the president not act sooner when implored by the Gulf State governors to send assistance both for evacuation and rescue efforts? (The famed flooded New Orleans school buses were useless to the mayor for evacuation purposes without drivers and federally-approved destinations; responsibilities that fall squarely in FEMAs lap.) A single phone call from the president from the Oval Office, or Air Force One, or the Senators birthday party in Arizona, or the Naval Base Coronado after he finished strumming the guitar he received would have sufficed. NorthCom was in place and ready to serve, but the president did not request their aid. He knew that a disaster of this magnitude was possible based on the test scenario called Hurricane Pam, the warnings from the under-funded Army Corps of engineers about the levees in New Orleans, and the alerts explaining the dire consequences of Katrina from NOAA; he cannot claim ignorance of the impending calamity.
Why did the president hand out positions like Head of Homeland Security and the three top positions in FEMA to people who had no disaster management experience that would make them valuable in such placements? Are former political campaign managers and horse association attorneys who embellish their résumés the best the President can muster for these all-important jobs? What good are emergency officers who were so out of touch with the situation on the ground that they didnt find out for DAYS that there were thousands of people trapped at the New Orleans Convention Center? Some heck of a job. Mr. Bush had nothing but high praise for former director James Lee Witt, why didnt he keep the man on the job?
Why did the president stall on the acceptance of or flat out refuse international assistance? Why was the U.S.S. Bataan sent to the gulf only to sit there and watch helplessly from the waters as it awaited the call to action? FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security appear to have been instructed to reject help from people all over the United States. For what? Pride? Red tape? A misunderstanding of how very bad the situation in the gulf turned out to be?
Now the president is rumored to be thinking of passing more tax cuts. It was bad enough to do it during a time of war, but with the Gulf disaster stacked on top of that there is no justificationnonefor cutting taxes at this time.
But there is every justification to demand an independent investigation. After 9/11/2001 we were promised that our nation would be made safer, our emergency responses made more efficient and streamlined. They werent. Someone dropped the ball and it landed smack dab on the Gulf Coast.[/font]