Fuck the NYT/IHT and their anti-Texas bigotry

[Extra Stout]

In the week since Katrina hit, Houston has stepped up to the plate big-time to take care of evacuees, filling up the Astrodome and other area buildings to feed and care for them. Citizens have emptied their wallets and store shelves buying supplies for the victims.

Many objective people might think that Houston is something of a hero city for its efforts. But of course, to the liberal slime who run the New York Times, that is not acceptable because Houston is as red-state as a city can be.

Therefore, we are slandered as crass profiteers and ambulance-chasers:


HOUSTON -- No one would accuse this city of being timid in the scramble to profit from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Oil services companies based here are already racing to carry out repairs to damaged offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, and the promise of plenty of work to do sent shares in two large companies, Halliburton and Baker Hughes, soaring to record levels last week. The Port of Houston is preparing for an increase in traffic as shippers divert cargo away from the damaged ports of New Orleans and Pascagoula, Mississippi.

With brio that might make an ambulance-chaser proud, one company, National Realty Investments is offering special financing deals "for hurricane survivors only," with no down payments and discounted closing costs.

"It feels like the only things left in south Louisiana are snakes and alligators," said John Olson, co-manager of Houston Energy Partners, a hedge fund that operates out of a skyscraper in the city center. "Houston is positioned for a boom."

Perhaps no city in the United States is in a better spot to turn Katrina's tragedy into opportunity. Long known for its commercial fervor, Houston, the largest city in the South with a metropolitan population of more than four million, has one of the busiest ports in the United States and remains unrivaled as a center for the energy industry.

Fuck liberals.

[Marcus Bryant]

Yeah, the city and state have stepped up tremendously.

But when there's a Bush to be hatin', look out!

[Spurminator]

Wow. Incredibly weak.

[Money316]

No shit Ex Stout!

The other day I heard CNN blasting Houston, at the same time I heard Fox News praising Houston specifically, and Texas in general, for their warm hospitality.

Fuck all these liberal assholes who think they always got a better idea of how to do things with someone else's money.

Pitch the fuck up or shut the fuck up.

:fro :fro :fro

[MiNuS]

NO,NO,NO!

Houston is one thing and Bush is completely another thing!


Props to Houston and Texas as a whole. We're going to absorb the bill together.


To me Bush is just an accident.

[Shelly]

No shit Ex Stout!

The other day I heard CNN blasting Houston, at the same time I heard Fox News praising Houston specifically, and Texas in general, for their warm hospitality.

Fuck all these liberal assholes who think they always got a better idea of how to do things with someone else's money.

:fro :fro :fro

Yeah, and if Texas didn't open it's doors, the media would be blasting Texas for not helping out her neighbor.

Jesus.

[mookie2001]

Fuck liberals.

when NYT says something we dont agree with
"oh i cant believe those leftyleftistlibs!"
when we agree
"look you Libs, even the NYT says it!,"

[Spurminator]

The hate for Texans in NY is palpable. Houston's hospitality in the last week has conflicted with Northerners' image of Texans as selfish racists. Apparently, it's a mindfuck they are unable to cope with.

[Nbadan]

Let's ask Judith Miller if the NY Times is liberal.

[Money316]

NO,NO,NO!

Houston is one thing and Bush is completely another thing!


Props to Houston and Texas as a whole. We're going to absorb the bill together.


To me Bush is just an accident.

No matter what Bush would have done you dick heads would still be bitching. The fact is this was a STATE problem until it became evident the STATE could handle things and the Federal Govt had to step in. For God's sake read the Constitution and understand the basics of State rights and responsibilities before opening your fucking pie hole.

The most classic example recently are the State Governments suing the Federal Government for trying to BRAC their Air National Guard Units. Interesting how the Governors can claim responsibility and separatism when it suits their political ASSES!

Oh I can just see Indiana or Illinois stepping up to send in 15's and 16's unilaterally to protect Texas.

:fro :fro :fro

[Marcus Bryant]

when NYT says something we dont agree with
"oh i cant believe those leftyleftistlibs!"
when we agree
"look you Libs, even the NYT says it!,"


Doesn't seem to stop some from assuming that The Washington Times, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, etc...speak for all conservatives.

[j-6]

I went to NYC over the Labor Day weekend. We went to a bar on the Lower East Side Friday night that was having a hourly trivia contest and I won two of them in a row. When I went to claim my prize the first time I had to show my license. Before the second one began the emcee announced to the crowd, "You're not going to let a Texan beat you again, right guys?" I got booed after winning the second one.

[CommanderMcBragg]

Yeah, and if Texas didn't open it's doors, the media would be blasting Texas for not helping out her neighbor.

Jesus.

It is bad enough this disaster is being politicized let's keep religion out of it too.

[Jelly]

"Oil services companies based here are already racing to carry out repairs to damaged offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico"

Racing to carry out repairs? evil, evil Texans :devil :devil :devil

[CommanderMcBragg]

Doesn't seem to stop some from assuming that The Washington Times, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, etc...speak for all conservatives.

Don't they? :lol

All this "labeling" is what's causing all the finger pointing.

[mookie2001]

I, personally scoff Yankees all the time, for being yankeeass city slickers who die when it gets to be 95 degrees, for talking like idiots, for not knowing shit about other parts of the country

and I'm sure they do they same
thats why i'll continue to scoff them

I've gotta hand it to them for their electoral votes
although NJ was VERY close in 04
im sure Ny native Sean Hannity thanks Texas for their electoral votes

[Money316]

"Oil services companies based here are already racing to carry out repairs to damaged offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico"

Racing to carry out repairs? evil, evil Texans :devil :devil :devil

Exactly. Same one demensional asses that will bitch about the price of gas.

[Nbadan]

No matter what Bush would have done you dick heads would still be bitching. The fact is this was a STATE problem until it became evident the STATE could handle things and the Federal Govt had to step in. For God's sake read the Constitution and understand the basics of State rights and responsibilities before opening your fucking pie hole.

He, he, talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Even if reading the Emergency Declaration made by the WH on Aug 28th thereby proclaiming NO a Federal Disaster area is beyond your reading comprehension, the levees are under the supervision of The Army Corp of Engineers which is part of the US Defense Department. Once the levees broke, this was a Fed responsibility.

[Money316]

He, he, talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Even if reading the Emergency Declaration made by the WH on Aug 28th thereby proclaiming NO a Federal Disaster area is beyond your reading comprehension, the levees are under the supervision of The Army Corp of Engineers which is part of the US Defense Department. Once the levees broke, this was a Fed responsibility.

You just made my point for me. Until the aftermath was apparent, this was a STATE responsibility. Once NO was declared a Federal Disaster Area then and only then ....

Additionally, if you knew anything about the ACOE besides the fact they are part of the DoD, you'd know they don't do anything unless there's money to fund their activity. Take a look at their website http://www.usace.army.mil/who/ and understand they don't have money -- they act on money -- given to them by others.

For example, once FEDERAL funds were made available to fund the private CONTRACTORS, the pumps starting operating. Basically, you can't do crap without a contract!

[1369]

"Oil services companies based here are already racing to carry out repairs to damaged offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico"

Racing to carry out repairs? evil, evil Texans :devil :devil :devil

Well what the hell did they expect them to do? Leave the rigs unoperational?

[Spurminator]

They expected to have a bipartisan UN commission (headed by Jacques Chirac)determine which country is best suited to carry out those repairs.

[gtownspur]

Dan Silenced!! Brilliant!

[exstatic]

You just made my point for me. Until the aftermath was apparent, this was a STATE responsibility. Once NO was declared a Federal Disaster Area then and only then ....

RIF. In the post above yours, you were informed that NO was declared a disaster area on the 28th of August, which was a Sunday. That's the day before Katrina came ashore. Dan didn't make your point, you made his.


For example, once FEDERAL funds were made available to fund the private CONTRACTORS, the pumps starting operating.
I think the issue is how long it took to make funds available. What were they waiting for? The disaster was declared on Sunday!

[CharlieMac]

Link?

[CharlieMac]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/06/business/06goldrush.html

Here it is.

[Cant_Be_Faded]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/06/business/06goldrush.html

Here it is.


dammit eriks

now everytime i look at your posts i imagine you're a ridiculously hot, gigantic breasted super model just begging for it (attention)

[CharlieMac]

dammit eriks

now everytime i look at your posts i imagine you're a ridiculously hot, gigantic breasted super model just begging for it (attention)

You're such a sweet talker. Oh you.

:lol

[Cant_Be_Faded]

You're such a sweet talker. Oh you.

:lol


thats seriously soooo not cool :oops

[Cant_Be_Faded]

that picture is like 25 points above the upper lethal limit on the Hotness Scale

[exstatic]

Link?

Sorry, here it is, along with some irony...


disaster declaration (http://author.voanews.com/english/2005-08-28-voa6.cfm)


President Bush has declared a state of emergency for the Gulf Coast state of Louisiana, as it braces for the expected onslaught of Hurricane Katrina, set to make landfall on Monday.

Saturday's emergency declaration authorizes federal officials to coordinate all disaster relief efforts and provide appropriate assistance in several Louisiana parishes.


Edit: For the Faux news crowd:
Faux even says so... (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,167240,00.html)


The president's emergency declaration authorizes the FEMA to coordinate all disaster relief efforts and to provide appropriate assistance in a number of Louisiana parishes, or counties.

[whottt]

That declaration of Emergency does not give FEMA authority over the Govenor of the state of Louisiana...Geezus how hard is this to figure out? It gives them authority over Federal Resources to be used at the request of the fucking govenor, they cannot do anything or supply anything without her first asking for it...it does not give them power over her, it does not give them the power to act within that state without her authorization. Dammit....figure it out.

[Nbadan]

That declaration of Emergency does not give FEMA authority over the Govenor of the state of Louisiana...Geezus how hard is this to figure out? It gives them authority over Federal Resources to be used at the request of the fucking govenor, they cannot do anything or supply anything without her first asking for it...it does not give them power over her, it does not give them the power to act within that state without her authorization. Dammit....figure it out.

Once both the Governor of Louisiana and the President both declared State of Emergencies it was up to the President and the WH to step up and give FEMA all the authority it needs to handle the situation, even Federalizing the State NG, and commandeer whatever resources it needed to get the job done. Clearly, that didn't happen here.

[whottt]

Ok...as we already agreed upon...it's Bush's fault for respecting that dumb bitch's authority...that still leaves a failed evac effort by the local authorities, in terms of supplying their own police forece with food and water...not to mention everyone they packed into the dome...and something Bush did not have the power Federalize...


But for the sake of this argument...FEMA did not have authority in the evac. Mookie is wrong...exstatic is wrong...and everyone who thought they did was wrong. They were and still are strictly support.

And I agree....Bush was an idiot to leave fucking Blanco in power...but if he had removed her...you and I both know the major purpose in your political life would be to blame him.

So go ahead and take this shit into the mass media...I can't wait till the Democrats hit the press with this one...It's Bush's fault for not over-ruling the authority of the Democratic Govenor of Louisiana. Decyring a President who puts up with your incompetence is not going to get you the government back... it's only going to scare even more people off.


By the way...did you notice that when all the shit was hitting the fan and FEMA and Bush were getting blasted...the name people called for was not a Democrat...it was Guilianni. I guess everyone knows the Democrats are not fit to lead anything....even the Democrats know it now...it's Bush's fault for respecting their authority and leaving them in positions of leadership....even at the state and local levels.

[Nbadan]

Ok...as we already agreed upon...it's Bush's fault for respecting that dumb bitch's authority...that still leaves a failed evac effort by the local authorities, in terms of supplying their own police forece with food and water...not to mention everyone they packed into the dome...and something Bush did not have the power Federalize...


But for the sake of this argument...FEMA did not have authority in the evac. Mookie is wrong...exstatic is wrong...and everyone who thought they did was wrong. They were and still are strictly support.

And I agree....Bush was an idiot to leave fucking Blanco in power...but if he had removed her...you and I both know the major purpose in your political life would be to blame him.

So go ahead and take this shit into the mass media...I can't wait till the Democrats hit the press with this one...It's Bush's fault for not over-ruling the authority of the Democratic Govenor of Louisiana. Decyring a President who puts up with your incompetence is not going to get you the government back... it's only going to scare even more people off.


By the way...did you notice that when all the shit was hitting the fan and FEMA and Bush were getting blasted...the name people called for was not a Democrat...it was Guilianni. I guess everyone knows the Democrats are not fit to lead anything....even the Democrats know it now...it's Bush's fault for respecting their authority and leaving them in positions of leadership....even at the state and local levels.

Well, FEMA didn't directly make the call because the President sat on his hands, but they did have Federal jurisdiction over the city, and they did advise the NO local authorities on what preparations they should make to protect the citizens of NO, including the idea to bus people to evacuation centers like the SuperDome and how many supplies they should have on hand.

None-the-less, after the levee broke, FEMA had all the authority it needed to airdrop food, water, medicine to the citizens of NO. They knew what was gonna happen, they had models that showed exactly what would happen to the city in case of a levee breach.

The whole Guilianni thing is a remnant of 911. People remember how reassured they felt when Guilianni confidently lead them through the recovery, but that doesn't mean that elements within the Republican Party itself would support Guilianni for President as a Republican candidate.

[Money316]

RIF. In the post above yours, you were informed that NO was declared a disaster area on the 28th of August, which was a Sunday. That's the day before Katrina came ashore. Dan didn't make your point, you made his.


I think the issue is how long it took to make funds available. What were they waiting for? The disaster was declared on Sunday!

True, but the Constitution says only Congress can appropriate funding, and that wasn't done until Sep 2 for $10B.

Take a look at the following website, http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/005367.php

For now selected paragraphs are found below:

"Let's talk about poor response. Why did it take Congress five days to take action? They knew this storm went to a category 5 last week before it made landfall. No matter where it hit, it had a 100% chance of doing catastrophic damage somewhere, and by Friday it had New Orleans squarely in its sights. Congress should have been back in DC by Monday to get this bill passed and hand it to President Bush, not five days later. They couldn't be bothered to come back from their August vacation more than a couple of days early....

...When the storm reached Cat-5 status in the Gulf of Mexico, what did George Bush do? He declared the entire Gulf coast an emergency area and mobilized FEMA. Until it actually made landfall, however, he could not pinpoint the assets. Even at the last moment, the brunt of the storm hit Gulfport, not New Orleans. The levee failure came later, on Tuesday, and until then the damage to New Orleans was major, not catastrophic.

Even so, the existence of the storm off the coast of Louisiana should have prompted governments on all levels to act. What happened? The city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana asked people to evacuate, but made no preparations to assist people in that endeavor. By Friday the outbound roads clogged with people in cars looking to escape, which all did. However, an entire fleet of school buses -- hundreds of them -- sat in their parking lots, gathering dust. Until George Bush called Governor Blanco personally and pleaded with her to make the evacuation order mandatory on Saturday, neither Mayor Nagin nor Blanco told people they had to leave. Apparently, that order only went out over the TV and radio from their press conference; no attempt was made to direct people out of their homes and onto the road.

After the levees broke on Tuesday, the situation broke down rapidly, a drearily predictable result. The two main refugee centers, the official one at the Superdome and the ad-hoc site at the Convention Center, should have been evacuated at that point. However, even two days after landfall, New Orleans had not moved its buses to high ground to keep them ready for use in case the levees broke. Lousiana's governor had not called out her National Guard units, only 25% of which have deployed to Iraq. With I-10 from the east completely unusable for vehicular traffic and the New Orleans PD completely absorbed by search-and-rescue functions, looting ran wild and order completely broke down. Nagin only ordered the PD to take on looting as a high priority on Thursday.

What did George Bush do? He had a wide area of devastation to manage. Mississippi has also sustained catastrophic damage, with entire towns destroyed, flooded, and unable to fend for themselves. He does not have the authority to call out anyone's National Guard until he federalizes the units, a move usually reserved for use when governors prove recalcitrant in mobilization. Yet within three days of the levee burst and the drowning of New Orleans, Bush had 40,000 troops entering the city to take over the management from Nagin and Blanco, delivering the aid that had waited for lines of communication to get established and the order that the NOPD and Louisiana could not maintain.

We work within a federal system, where cities and states control the allocation of resources used within their borders. We do this because we recognize that, for the most part, federalism works. Local decisions about resource allocation usually create better results than top-down bureaucratic management. The main requirement for that to work is local leadership. Blaming George Bush because he delivered results within three days of the major catastrophic event while following these rules is as silly as blaming Congress for taking five days to pass an aid bill.

The main failure in New Orleans came when the local and state governments refused to recognize that the storm had a high chance to cause catastrophic damage and use its assets to get the poor and infirm out of its way. They had plenty of resources (in vehicles) with which to do that, but left them right where the floods would destroy them. All the rest of the damage would have been mere property destruction, difficult to rebuild but nonetheless easier to accept than the unbelievable hardship we've seen this week."

:fro :fro :fro