I want answers. Don't you?
When the attempt to remove Ms. Schiavo from life support looked like it would work, the United States Congress reconvened, on a Sunday, to stop it.
A week ago Friday NOAA announced that Hurricane Katrina would be a category 4 or 5 hurricane by the time it reached land somewhere between Louisiana and Alabama on August 29. Even with this much advance warning, Congress doesn't bother itself to reconvene until September 1 - and not all of them showed up.
Questions such as: "The United States can drop relief supplies in the Tsunami ravaged areas of Southeast Asia in less the 48 hours, but can't get a bottle of water into New Orleans or Biloxi?" have been asked by citizens on the street and major media anchors for the last five days. There's no answer beyond Mr. Bush saying he wasn't satisfied by the response. We deserve to know why it took Mr. Bush's photo-op appearance in Mississippi and Louisiana to get the convoy's rolling into the hurricane ravaged areas.
Mr. Brown of FEMA, responding to Ms. O'Brien of CNN questions like she's an idiot, with galling lies, that he didn't know about the situation in the Convention center. Stating that the lawlessness wasn't as bad as reported, that everything was under control, considering the circumstances. The man should be flogged. He could have read The Interdictor and known exactly what was going on. I guess he was too busy lying to the press in the unending stream of pointless new conferences he was hosting.
Yesterday several governors starting coming forward stating that they had offered thousands of their own National Guard troops to help in the effort to rescue and clean up. They were refused by FEMA. Supplies of water, food and medicine are just waiting for transport in all of the states which border Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Just sitting there, waiting for someone to do something with them. This is inexcusable.
Five days after the storm passed, nothing has been done about housing the nearly 2 million people who have been left without homes. 2 million. Not the 100,000 plus being evacuated from New Orleans - 2 million homeless people. On Tuesday Mr. Brown said FEMA would be talking with cruise ship companies, resort owners, and many others about setting up housing for these people. What happened to that plan? The Houston Astrodome and the dozens of large and small shelters in Texas are being swamped. And those are only the people from New Orleans. What is going to happen to everyone else?
Isn't this what FEMA is supposed to do - house the homeless, feed the starving? And I'm not exaggerating; there are thousands of people in New Orleans who have not eaten since Monday morning. In other areas of the hurricane devastation there are people who haven't had one decent meal since Monday. They are living on chips, bread and small amounts of water. We hear from Mr. Brown that MRE's are being delivered - where? The Salvation Army cannot access the people in New Orleans; they can only feed the people who are evacuated to the Airport and other staging areas. You go without proper food and water for five days and then try to eat, you throw up. Even if you are not under the most horrifying of stresses. Your body cannot withstand the food entering your system that quickly. The Mayor of New Orleans, Mr. Nagin, is still estimating 50,000 plus people need to be evacuated from his city this morning. What, in the name of humanity, is taking so long? 50,000 and more people who are going yet another day without food and water. People are literally dying of dehydration and starvation in this country.
The response of the Federal government to this crisis is despicable. It is criminally negligent. The useless excuse for a Congress needs to investigate immediately - not whenever the hell they decide to wander back to the Capitol and deal with this crisis. Mr. Brown must be fired and arrested and tried on multiple counts of manslaughter. Mr. Bush and every member of the Cabinet must answer for this nightmare. This nation was unwilling to force Mr. Bush to answer for his illegal invasion of a sovereign nation. I pray we will force him to answer for this appalling negligence.
I've written to Dodd, Lieberman and Shays. I've told them I am appalled and disgusted by the response of this government to a crisis the likes of which we have never had to bear before. I don't expect an answer. I'm hoping for some action. Real action. Heads rolling. Trials. Imprisonment. Someone must be held accountable for the horrors we have been watching all week.