SI
SI
discoversearch

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor.  We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community.  If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.
Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: GROUND ZERO™ who wrote (701125)9/9/2005 11:10:29 PM
From: BEEF JERKEY  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 769670
 
Conservatives have a great propensity for denial.

You cut taxes and what do you always get? Yes that’s right - a ballooning deficit. It happened under Regan - now its worse with Bush.

What is so bad about paying tax? Do you really want to live in the sort of place New Orleans was last week? Most third world countries have ineffectual tax systems ie. no tax - I been to the third world - it sucks to live there.

It strikes me as extremely selfish to argue against pay ones fair share of tax - the rich take far more out of a society they should pay more back in.



To: GROUND ZERO™ who wrote (701125)9/9/2005 11:23:07 PM
From: BEEF JERKEY  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 769670
 
Iraq hurt Katrina response, general says

BAY ST. LOUIS, Mississippi (AP) -- The deployment of thousands of National Guard troops from Mississippi and Louisiana in Iraq when Hurricane Katrina struck hindered those states' initial storm response, military and civilian officials said Friday.

Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, said that "arguably" a day or so of response time was lost due to the absence of the Mississippi National Guard's 155th Infantry Brigade and Louisiana's 256th Infantry Brigade, each with thousands of troops in Iraq.

"Had that brigade been at home and not in Iraq, their expertise and capabilities could have been brought to bear," said Blum.

Blum said that to replace those units' command and control equipment, he dispatched personnel from Guard division headquarters from Kansas and Minnesota shortly after the storm struck.

Blum also said that in a worst-case scenario up to 50,000 additional Guardsmen per month will be needed in Louisiana or Mississippi over the next four months to continue providing relief, law enforcement and other post-hurricane services.

Those 200,000 troops, if needed, would represent nearly two-thirds of the approximately 319,000 Guard troops available nationwide.

Blum said his staff has almost completed a plan for 30-day rotations of Guard units so that no one will have to serve in the Gulf Coast for more than a month.

There are about 30,000 Guardsmen in Iraq and a smaller number in Afghanistan, Kosovo and elsewhere overseas.

Democratic Rep. Gene Taylor of Mississippi, whose waterfront home in Bay St. Louis was washed away in the storm, told reporters the absence of the deployed Mississippi Guard units made it harder for local officials to coordinate their initial response.

"What you lost was a lot of local knowledge," Taylor said, as well as equipment that could have been used in recovery operations.

"The best equipment went with them, for obvious reasons," especially communications equipment, he added.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said this week the Pentagon has the ability to cope with both Katrina and the Iraq war: "We can and will do both."

Asked Tuesday about critics who said the commitment of large numbers of troops to the Iraq conflict hindered the military's response to Hurricane Katrina, Rumsfeld said, "Anyone who's saying that doesn't understand the situation."

Blum said that overall the Iraq mission for Guard units across the nation is not limiting the military's ability to expand and continue the rescue and recovery operations in storm-battered states.

"Iraq and other overseas commitments do not inhibit our ability to sustain this effort here at home," Blum said in an interview with three reporters who flew to Bay St. Louis with him Friday from Washington.

Blum and Taylor toured the heavily damaged areas around Bay St. Louis.

They also met with Guardsmen and other troops helping clean up and provide emergency assistance to those displaced by the wall of water that wiped out many homes and flooded a widespread area miles north of the coastline.

Blum also flew to New Orleans, where he met with troops and commanders and was given an extensive aerial tour of flooded portions of the city.

Afterward he flew to Baton Rouge and met with Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, commander of the military relief and recovery effort in the region.

cnn.com



To: GROUND ZERO™ who wrote (701125)9/10/2005 12:10:58 AM
From: paret  Respond to of 769670
 
David Letterman has an endless attack on FEMA's Brown tonight. Going on and on and on.

Letterman is eager to show he is a hard-working part of the left media.



To: GROUND ZERO™ who wrote (701125)9/10/2005 12:27:57 AM
From: paret  Respond to of 769670
 
As the full horror of this sinks in, thousands of desperate columnists are asking if George Bush should not be concerned by accusations of racism against the federal government.

The answer is almost certainly yes, provided nobody remembers that Jesse Jackson once called New York "Hymietown."