OCTOBER 2005
President Bush announced a series of measures that will ensure tax breaks for big business, a permanent Diaspora for the city's poor, and the future gentrification of poor and middle class sections of the flooded city. The Bush speech was full of corporate contrivances that dodge the type of assistance that is actually needed for the displaced population of the New Orleans metropolitan region.
Bush recently named CIA Leakgate suspect Karl Rove as his point man for the rebuilding efforts on the Gulf Coast. The Bush speech reflected both Rove's emphasis on spin and a lack of interest in the plight of the poor. Although Bush accepted responsibility for the "problem" of his administration's poor response effort, he quickly diverted his priorities to workers' recovery accounts (something that sounds suspiciously like medical savings accounts); a "Gulf Opportunity Zone" offering big tax breaks to corporations in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama; and a homestead lottery scheme to build homes on federal lands.
Bush did not address the immediate and long-term focused concerns for the people of the Gulf Coast. For example, FEMA continues to block needed assistance to the homeless residents of the region.
Bush failed to provide incentives for people to return to their homes. He also failed to insist on incentives for minority-owned businesses to participate in rebuilding efforts.
"Price Gouging" is a concept
that only a politician or other short-sighted economic
illiterate could coin.
http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/
A new Legal Defense Fund fights laws that ban price
gouging during disasters such as the aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina. The Pro Price Gouging Legal Defense
Fund (PPGLDF) provides aid to people who are harassed or
charged under anti-gouging laws. News media are asked to
inform the public that pro bono help is available to
buyers or sellers whenever law enforcement interferes
with their commerce.
http://rexcurry.net/price-gouging-legal-defense-fund.html
Criminal defense lawyers are organizing to
end shortages caused by the laws and to restore a
libertarian free market economy. The laws frighten
citizens from offering goods and services to disaster
victims, and the laws frighten disaster victims from
negotiating for needed goods and services. For more
information call 813 238-5371
PPGLDF attorneys are arranging seminars to teach lawyers
the libertarian arguments favoring gouging, its morality,
and to train lawyers in defense strategies to assist
defendants in court.
I am Attorney Rex Curry, and I formed the PPGLDF after
personal experiences with price gouging laws during
recent hurricanes in Florida. Florida's Attorney General
Charlie Crist created gas shortages where there were no
shortages. After Katrina, Crist created a fear of
accusation that
caused stations to stop selling gasoline that they had on
hand. Crist created shortages, misery and suffering. His
behavior could have killed people. The anti-gouging
mentality causes deaths, suffering, shortages, misery,
and poverty as it did in the former USSR (62 million
dead) and the Peoples' Republic of China (35 million
dead). Anti-gouging laws are another example of how the
USA's police state is growing.
Government schools in the U.S. do not teach basic
economics, nor economic freedom, individual liberty and
property rights. It is another reason why government
schools must end. Charlie Crist is the poster child for
ending government schools. His office terrorizes
providers. Crist is crucifying
everyone.
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/docket/04-1668.htm
Let's return them to protecting people from violence and
theft, which is the only proper purpose of law
enforcement anyway."
All anti-gouging laws should be retired .As a member of
the renowned National Association of Criminal Defense
Lawyers (NACDL), I help educate my esteemed colleagues at
NACDL, the legal community, and the general public about
the beneficence of price gouging. The NACDL listserv
contained posts from some lawyers who have the same
economic ignorance as the general public. Some NACDL
lawyers opposed price gouging and defended a
police-state.
There is a common misconception that price gouging is
only a white-collar crime. Many poor people who
desperately need money to buy food, medicine and other
necessities are harassed and threatened if they try to
sell anything they have to raise needed funds for
purchases. The poor are also prevented from buying
necessities when police harass and frighten away
providers.The extent to which anti-gouging laws are
enforced is the extent to which the laws cause hoarding,
shortages, poverty, misery and even mass death.
A similar point can be made -but is never made in the
media- for gasoline priced at $3 a gallon.
These tales and others have emerged during disasters,
serving as chilling reminders that natural disasters
bring out the best in many people -- but the absolute
worst in economic analysis.
True price gouging is what the persecutors in government
do 24/7 with their taxes, spending, debt and police-state
behavior. Because of "price gouging" laws,
Florida's government (and Louisiana's government etc)
kills people and causes widespread shortages and
suffering. Jeb Bush, perhaps your future president, asks
snitches to tattle on "price gougers" over a
toll-free hotline. Florida's Governor triples his
stupidity by also speaking against "hoarding."
Hoarding becomes wiser wherever any governor suppresses
free market economics.
Florida's Attorney General Charlie Crist and Consumer
Services Commissioner Charles Bronson duel for their
media cheerleaders to see who is the biggest ignoramus
and scam-artist on the topic. They both show that the
government is a lost cause for liberty. In fact, they are
aggressive, EVIL, against liberty. Their people
out-socialize Clinton by more than double (in social
spending alone). They and their media conspirators are
more proof that government schools must end. Florida's
Attorney General Charlie Crist created gas shortages
where there were no shortages. After Katrina, Crist
created a fear of accusation that caused stations to stop
selling gasoline that they had on hand. His behavior
could have killed people. Crist is crucifying Floridians.
Beneficent price-increases (slandered as
"price gouging") are banned so that political
whores can commit true price-gouging and harm everyone by
giving government more money for more violence in the
USA's growing police state.
Thank goodness that capitalism provides so many ways to
defeat them and their incredibly deadly dogma.
As Dr. Milton Friedman said "If a government were
put in charge of the Sahara Desert, within five years
they'd have a shortage of sand."
Thomas Szasz quipped "The proverb warns that 'You
should not bite the hand that feeds you.' But maybe you
should if it prevents you from feeding yourself."
For more information call 813 238-5371
http://rexcurry.net/price-gouging-legal-defense-fund.html
EVERYTHING ABOUT the
federal emergency management agency - F.E.M.A.
Michael Brown. photoAP
Dear friends,
The media has done an admirable job of reporting on
cover-up and corruption related to Hurricane Katrina and
Rita. Below is a compilation of key excerpts from
excellent major media articles which reveal a disturbing
pattern of corruption and manipulation related to these
hurricanes. Links are provided to each highly
informative article on its media website for easy
verification and more information. If any link fails to
function, click
here. You can make a difference by emailing this
important information to your friends and colleagues.With
best wishes,
Fred Burks for the WantToKnow.info
Team
Former
language interpreter for Presidents Bush and Clinton
P.S. Our hearts and deepest wishes for support and encouragement go out to all affected by Hurricane Katrina and Rita. If you are interested in donating to support those affected, we have found that Brother's Brother Foundation makes best use of funds donated. To make a contribution: www.brothersbrother.org
FEMA twice failed to give Congress plan to evacuate
New Orleans
September 18, 2005, CNN/Associated Press
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/17/katrina.evacuation.ap/
Eight years ago Congress...set aside $500,000 for FEMA to create "a comprehensive analysis and plan of all evacuation alternatives for the New Orleans metropolitan area." Frustrated two years later that no study had materialized, Congress strengthened its directive. This time it ordered "an evacuation plan for a Category 3 or greater storm, a levee break, flood or other natural disaster for the New Orleans area." The $500,000 that Congress appropriated for the evacuation plan went to a commission that studied future options for the 24-mile bridge over Lake Pontchartrain.
Going
(Down) by the Book
September 17, 2005, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/17/opinion/17tierney.html
When the Federal Emergency Management Agency's paperwork slowed the evacuation of patients from the airport, Acadian's frustrated medics waited with empty helicopters. "At one point I had 10 helicopters on the ground waiting to go," said Marc Creswell, an Acadian medic, "but FEMA kept stonewalling us with paperwork. Meanwhile, every 30 or 40 minutes someone was dying." The company sent in outside doctors and nurses. FEMA rejected the help because the doctors and nurses weren't certified members of a National Disaster Medical Team. "When the doctors asked why they couldn't help these critically ill people lying there unattended," Mr. Creswell recalled, "the FEMA people kept saying, 'You're not federalized.' "
Frustrated:
Fire crews to hand out fliers for FEMA
September 6, 2005, Salt Lake Tribune
http://www.sltrib.com/search/ci_3004197
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090705E.shtml
Not long after some 1,000 firefighters sat down for eight hours of training, the whispering began: "What are we doing here?" As New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin pleaded on national television for firefighters...a battalion of highly trained men and women sat idle Sunday [less than a week after landfall] in a muggy Sheraton Hotel conference room in Atlanta. Many of the firefighters, assembled from Utah and throughout the United States by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, thought they were going to be deployed as emergency workers. Instead, they have learned they are going...to disseminate fliers and a phone number: 1-800-621-FEMA. On Monday, some firefighters stuck in the staging area at the Sheraton peeled off their FEMA-issued shirts and stuffed them in backpacks, saying they refuse to represent the federal agency.
A Quick Compilation of FEMA's Rejections of Qualified Help
FEMA
refuses hundreds of personnel, dozens of vehicles - Chicago
Tribune, 9/2/05
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-050902daley,1,2011979.story
FEMA
won't let Red Cross deliver food - Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette, 9/3/05
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05246/565143.stm
FEMA
fails to utilize Navy ship with 600-bed hospital on board
- Chicago Tribune, 9/4/05
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0509040369sep04,1,4144825.story
FEMA
turns away state-of-the-art mobile hospital from Univ. of
North Carolina - CNN, 9/5/05
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/09/04/katrina.sick.redtape.ap/
FEMA
won't accept Amtrak's help in evacuations - Financial
Times, 9/5/05
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/84aa35cc-1da8-11da-b40b-00000e
FEMA
turns back Wal-Mart supply trucks - New York Times,
9/6/05
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/national/nationalspecial/05blame.html
FEMA
prevents Coast Guard from delivering diesel fuel - New
York Times, 9/6/05
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/national/nationalspecial/05blame.html
FEMA
blocks 500-boat citizen flotilla from delivering aid - News
Sentinel, 9/8/05
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/news/editorial/12595873.htm
FEMA
asks media not to take pictures of dead - Washington
Post, 9/8/05
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/07/AR2005090702126.html
FEMA
turns back German government plane loaded with 15 tons of
food - Spiegel, 9/12/05
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,374268,00.html
FEMA:
"First Responders Urged Not To Respond" Unless
Dispatched - FEMA's own website
http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=18470
Finally fooling none of the people
September 13, 2005, Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-scheer13sep13,0,2708046.column
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/091305B.shtml#1
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is now run by political hacks appointed by Bush who know zilch about disaster relief. "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job," the president said to Michael Brown a few days before the FEMA chief was relieved of his oversight of the relief efforts. Brown, who reportedly doctored his unimpressive resume and didn't have a background in emergency management, resigned Monday. He had secured this plum job because he was a college buddy of his predecessor, Joe Allbaugh, who managed Bush's 2000 presidential campaign.
Bush
allies getting Katrina work
September 13, 2005, CNN
http://money.cnn.com/2005/09/12/news/economy/katrina_contracts.reut/
Companies
with ties to the Bush White House and the former head of
FEMA are clinching some of the administration's first
disaster relief and reconstruction contracts in the
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. At least two major
corporate clients of lobbyist Joe Allbaugh, President
Bush's former campaign manager and a former head of the
Federal Emergency Management Agency, have already been
tapped to start recovery work along the battered Gulf
Coast. One is...Halliburton Co. (Research) subsidiary
Kellogg Brown and Root. Vice President Dick Cheney is a
former head of Halliburton. Allbaugh formally registered
as a lobbyist for Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown
and Root in February. Allbaugh is also a friend of
Michael Brown, director of FEMA who was removed as head
of Katrina disaster relief and sent back to Washington
amid allegations he had padded his resume. Halliburton
continues to be a source of income for Cheney, who served
as its chief executive officer from 1995 until 2000.
According to tax filings released in April, Cheney's
income included $194,852 in deferred pay from the
company.
Cheney
orders rural electric crews to work on oil pipeline from
Texas
September 11, 2005, WKYC (Ohio NBC affiliate)
http://www.wkyc.com/news/news_fullstory.asp?id=40633
Shortly after Hurricane Katrina roared through South Mississippi knocking out electricity and communication systems, the White House ordered power restored to a pipeline that sends fuel to the Northeast. That order...delayed efforts by at least 24 hours to restore power to two rural hospitals and a number of water systems. Mississippi Public Service Commissioner Mike Callahan said the U.S. Department of Energy called him [stating that] opening the fuel line was a national priority. Manager Dan Jordan said Vice President Dick Cheney’s office called and left voice mails twice shortly after the storm struck, saying the Collins substations needed power restored immediately. Callahan said energy officials told him gasoline and diesel fuel needed to flow through the pipeline to avert a national crisis from the inability to meet fuel needs in the Northeast. “Our concern was that...it would be a national crisis for Mississippi,“ Callahan said.
Intricate
Flood Protection Long a Focus of Dispute
September 1, 2005, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/01/national/nationalspecial/01levee.html
The 17th Street levee that gave way and led to the flooding of New Orleans was part of an intricate, aging system of barriers and pumps that was so chronically underfinanced that senior regional officials of the Army Corps of Engineers complained about it publicly for years. Often leading the chorus was Alfred C. Naomi, a senior project manager for the corps. Mr. Naomi grew particularly frustrated this year as the Gulf Coast braced for what forecasters said would be an intense hurricane season and a nearly simultaneous $71 million cut was announced in the New Orleans district budget to guard against such storms.
Chertoff:
Katrina scenario did not exist
September 5, 2005, CNN
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/US/09/03/katrina.chertoff/
Defending the U.S. government's response to Hurricane Katrina, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff argued...that government planners did not predict such a disaster ever could occur. But in fact, government officials, scientists and journalists have warned of such a scenario for years. Chertoff...said government officials did not expect both a powerful hurricane and a breach of levees that would flood the city of New Orleans. As far back as Friday, August 26 [three days before landfall], the National Hurricane Center was predicting the storm could be a Category 4 hurricane at landfall, with New Orleans directly in its path. The National Weather Service prediction proved almost perfect.
Gone
With the Water (Hurricane Predicted Again One Year Ago)
October 2004, National Geographic
http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature5/
http://205.188.130.53/ngm/0410/feature5/index.html
As the whirling maelstrom approached the coast, more than a million people evacuated to higher ground. Some 200,000 remained, however—the car-less, the homeless, the aged and infirm. It took two months to pump the city dry, and by then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment, a million people were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States. When did this calamity happen? It hasn't—yet. But the doomsday scenario is not far-fetched. "It's not if it will happen," says University of New Orleans geologist Shea Penland. "It's when."
New
Orleans is Sinking (Hurricane predicted on 9/11!!!)
September 11, 2001, Popular Mechanics (Note
the date of this article)
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/research/1282151.html
Emergency planners believe that it is a foregone conclusion that the Big Easy someday will be hit by a scouring storm surge. This watery "big one" will produce a staggering amount of damage. Yet, this doesn't necessarily mean that there will be a massive loss of lives. The key is a new emergency warning system developed by...Louisiana State University. Within 30 minutes to an hour after raw data is collected from monitoring stations in the Gulf, an assessment of storm-surge damage would be available to emergency planners. Disaster relief agencies then would be able to mobilize resources.
Experts
blame flooding on faulty levees
September 21, 2005, MSNBC/Washington Post
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9419053/
Louisiana's top hurricane experts have rejected the official explanations for the floodwall collapses that inundated much of New Orleans, concluding that Hurricane Katrina's storm surges were much smaller than authorities have suggested and that the city's flood-protection system should have kept most of the city dry. If Katrina did not exceed the design capacity of the New Orleans levees, the federal government may bear ultimate responsibility for this disaster.
When
sluggishness isn't OK
September 4, 2005, Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-0509040406sep04,1,3926343.column
E-mailers sent me copies of two news photos that revealed an apparent double standard regarding black and white flood victims in New Orleans. One of the images, shot by photographer Dave Martin for The Associated Press, shows a young black man wading through chest-deep waters after "looting" a grocery store, according to the caption. In the other, taken by photographer Chris Graythen for AFP/Getty Images, a white man and a similarly light-skinned woman also waded through chest-deep water after "finding" goods that included bread and soda in a local grocery store, according to the caption. Apparently, quipped a cynical blogger at Daily Kos, " It's not looting if you're white."
Third
World Scenes
September 5, 2005, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/04/AR2005090400958.html
Mullen has a schoolteacher's kindly demeanor, so it was jarring to hear him say he suspected that the levee breaks had somehow been engineered to keep the wealthy French Quarter and Garden District dry at the expense of poor black neighborhoods...a suspicion I heard from many other black survivors. And it was surprising to hear Mullen's gentle voice turn bitter as he described the scene at the convention center, when helicopters bringing food didn't even land and the soldiers "just pushed the food out like we were in the Third World." I literally stumbled into the Rev. Jesse Jackson. He looked genuinely shaken, [saying] "this looks like the hold of a slave ship."
Intricate
Flood Protection Long a Focus of Dispute
September 1, 2005, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/01/national/nationalspecial/01levee.html
No one expected that weak spot to be on a canal that...had received more attention and shoring up than many other spots in the region. It did not have broad berms, but it did have strong concrete walls. Shea Penland, director of the Pontchartrain Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of New Orleans, said that was particularly surprising because the break was "along a section that was just upgraded. It did not have an earthen levee," Dr. Penland said. "It had a vertical concrete wall several feel thick."
Earwitness
says explosives blew Industrial Canal levee (Video Clip)
September 11, 2005, ABC
http://www.total411.info/leveeboom.rm
(video clip, Real Player required - free
download)
DAVID MUIR, ABC NEWS: This is the actual levee that runs along the canal on the eastern side of the city. You can see the massive breach here and...what the water did to the Lower Ninth Ward. It completely destroyed neighborhoods. JOE EDWARDS, JR., 9TH WARD RESIDENT: I heard something go "boom"!!! MUIR: Joe Edwards rushed to get himself and as many neighbors as possible into his truck. They drove to this bridge, where they've been living ever since. Was it solely the water that broke the levee, or was it the force of this barge? Joe Edwards says neither. People...in this neighborhood...actually think the city did it, blowing up the levee to save richer neighborhoods like the French Quarter. MUIR: So you're convinced... EDWARDS: I know this happened! MUIR: They broke the levee on purpose? EDWARDS: They blew it.
Bush
lifts wage rules for Katrina
September 9, 2005, CNN/Reuters
http://money.cnn.com/2005/09/08/news/economy/katrina_wages.reut/
President Bush issued an executive order Thursday allowing federal contractors rebuilding in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to pay below the prevailing wage. In a notice to Congress, Bush said the hurricane had caused "a national emergency" that permits him to take such action. Bush's action came as the federal government moved to provide billions of dollars in aid. The administration is using the devastation of Hurricane Katrina to cut the wages of people desperately trying to rebuild their lives and their communities.
Bush Has Declared Katrina-Related
Emergencies in 40 States, District of Columbia
September 15, 2005, ABC
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1129802
The dire conditions created by Hurricane Katrina may be confined to the Gulf Coast, but on paper the emergency is all over the country. President Bush has declared that Katrina-related emergencies exist in 40 states and the District of Columbia. Apparently it does not take much to qualify as an emergency.
Note: These "emergencies" also give the president extraordinary powers to curtail civil liberties, as shown in the previous article.
WASHINGTON POST REPORT SEPT28TH:
Michael Brown is blaming Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin and "dysfunctional" state officials for the government's failed response to the disaster.