Time for Impeachment...

I'm calling for impeachment. I'm not being cute or joking around. I'm deadly serious. It's time for all of them to go. I've had enough.
This is from Netscape.com (CNN.com)

"When FEMA assembled 1,400 firefighters, it held them for sexual harassment training and assigned them to hand out fliers instead of rescuing people. Fifty of them were told to stand for a photo op with President Bush. Good use of resources?

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin had begged for more firefighters to help with search and rescue operations and put out blazes around the city. The Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA] assembled 1,400 firefighters last Sunday at the Sheraton Hotel in Atlanta.

But instead of being sent to New Orleans to rescue survivors, they were told that they would be community relations officers, hand out fliers and distribute a telephone number, 1-800-621-FEMA, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.

A FEMA spokeswoman was quoted as saying that firefighters who are complaining about their flier-distribution assignment should reevaluate their commitment to Americans as well as firefighting.

"They've got people here who are search-and-rescue certified, paramedics, haz-mat certified," a Texas firefighter told the Tribune. "We're sitting in here having a sexual-harassment class while there are still [victims] in Louisiana who haven't been contacted yet."

On Monday, 50 firefighters were flown quickly to Louisiana for their first assignment, which was to stand next to President Bush while he toured the area, the Tribune said.

Good use of resources?"

I've been holding off on writing about the nightmare that's engulfed the southern coast, and actually had been trying to give a fair shake to the way the administration has handled the relief efforts. No more. This administration does not give a damn about it's citizens and it has proven it in the past week. I'll admit that my first reaction to this tragedy was less than sympathetic to the people in New Orleans, Biloxi, etc... I have done a complete 180. Initially my first response was one of "Well, these people were warned it was coming, they should have left the area." I could not have been more ignorant. After doing some research, (which is what I should've done before opening my big yap to start with), I learned that New Orleans has a poverty rate that hovers around 30%. This in turn means that a lot of people had no means to get out before the storm hit. Where would they find the transportation? Where would they stay? Could any of these people afford a 100$ a night hotel? The answer is of course not. They were simply left there to drown as the water came rushing in to the area.

On to the "response" of the federal government if you can call it a response at all. There are three main people that need to lose their jobs immediately, President Bush, Head of FEMA Michael Brown, and Director of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff. How can it take FIVE days to get people water? I'm not even talking about food, blankets, medicine, etc... How is that even a remote possibility that something like that could happen? How does it take FIVE days to mobilize the National Guard to conduct some law and order? The short answer is that it doesn't. Please read:

"In Sept. 1999, while duly elected President Bill Clinton was on a working trip to New Zealand to meet with the Chinese president, Cat3 Hurricane Floyd started menacing the Carolina coast. What did he do? He declared the Carolinas a Federal Disaster Area before Floyd struck, mobilized the National Guard and military, cut short his working diplomatic foray, and flew home early to manage the natural disaster..."

The White House has already ramped up it's spin machine (read: Karl Rove) and started to blame local officials for the screwups that have happened. As if any local or state agency could manage a disaster in the size and scope of Katrina. That's what FEMA was created for. It's job is to manage and protect it's citizens in a disaster such as this. Many federal officials are saying that FEMA and other agencies couldn't enter New Orleans, they're saying there was no access. This is a bald faced and blatant lie. We're supposed to believe that CNN, FOX, NBC and all kinds of other news agencies can get in there to broadcast, but the federal government can't? The National Guard can't? FEMA can't?

One of the main things that can be taken from this tragedy for the people all over the nation that weren't directly affected is this. You are on your own. The current occupiers of the White House don't care any more about you than they do the White House dog.

Quotes from the last couple of days:

"Get off your asses and let's do something!" -New Orleans mayor to Federal officials.

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is (chuckle) – this is working very well for them." -The Presidents mama, Barbara Bush after visiting the Astrodome where thousands of evacuees were being housed.

"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." –President Bush, to FEMA director Michael Brown, while touring Hurricane-ravaged Mississippi

"We've lost our city, I fear it's potentially like Pompeii." -Marc Morial, a former mayor of New Orleans, now serving as president of the National Urban League.

"It's downtown Baghdad, it's insane." said tourist Denise Bollinger, who snapped pictures of looting in the French Quarter.

"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." –President Bush, on Good Morning America, Sept. 1, 2005, six days after repeated warnings from experts about the scope of damage expected from Hurricane Katrina.

"I have not heard a report of thousands of people in the convention center who don't have food and water." –Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, on NPR's All Things Considered, Sept. 1, 2005

"Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house — he's lost his entire house — there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch." (Laughter) —President Bush, touring hurricane damage, Mobile, Ala., Sept. 2, 2005

"(The bureaucracy) has murdered people in the greater New Orleans area." -Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish near New Orleans

"Don't you guys watch television? Don't you guys listen to the radio? -ABC's Ted Koppel in response to FEMA director Mike Brown saying he just learned about the roughly 15,000 people stranded at the New Orleans convention center.

"The governor and the president let thousands of people die and they let them die on their roofs and they let them die in the water, we got left. They didn't care." Resident of southeastern Louisiana Verlyn Davis Jr.

"ABOUT TIME BUSH!" -A sign on a boarded up window.