Anderson Cooper now reporting on CNN that the people are

[MidnightWind]

asking where the help is. No National Guard, No Military, no food, no water, no shelter, no FEMA, NOTHING. Oh, and looting is also going on even in the small towns--he's in Mississippi tonight.

[rfranklin]

1. Welcome to Bushworld...

It's every man and woman for themselves.

[daleo]

4. The ultimate dream of neo-conservatives (they claim)

Does rugged individualism get any more rugged?

[Triana]

2. dammit, bu$hit should have started organizing for these

resources LAST WEEK! No wonder people are looting. WTF are they supposed to do?

[davidinalameda]

3. it's not an election year

why would Bush care about these people

now if happened last year, you'd see him down there handing out the FEMA money himself

[Bumblebee]

30. Yes, remember how quickly he was in Florida in 2004 before

the elections, sleeves rolled up, passing ice around? He swore then it wasn't elections politics, he would have done it regardless. Ya, right. His ass should've been in DC AS SOON AS the category 5 storm was being forecasted last week and he should have found a way to get to NO earlier than the end of this week. It will be a ghost town by then. Clinton would have.

[Guaranteed]

5. "Better off in Baghdad." nt

[seito]

6. "They are on their way"

:eyes: Nothing like the full force of the Federal Government...if it ever arrives

[MidnightWind]

7. Anderson Cooper is now yelling back at the FEMA Director

to tell him that the FEMA team he was with today had to have police protection because they were afraid for their own safety due to looters. He's telling him that people are very upset that there has been NO federal response.

[Glenda]

10. It's almost like AC has a lot of good ideas...

and the FEMA guy has no clue what he's doing

[tjdee]

11. The FEMA director is clueless. He was Bush's national campaign chair

and his chief of staff in TX.

HE DOESNT KNOW WHAT THE FUCK HE IS DOING.

I want to find a Republican and ask them how they like that.

[jobycom]

21. Oh, fuck, Joe Albaugh is in charge of this?

He is one stupid, incompetent man. He had no experience and no clue how to run FEMA, his only job was to destroy it from the inside so they could close the office. Bush appointed one of his cronies to that position. I knew at the time it was a horrible mistake.

For the record, Joe Albaugh is the one who fixed Bush's National Gaurd records. That's why he's head of FEMA.

[lancdem]

27. The FEMA director is Michael Brown

He's no better than Albaugh, BTW.

[DS1]

23. Is it still that idiot with the flat-top hairdo?

[tjdee]

25. Yeah--god, he doesn't even know how to do his hair!

:scared:

[jsamuel]

8. ANDERSON IS GOING NUTS!!!

WHERE THE F$#& IS THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT?

[cbear70]

13. can't blame him

The response was ridiculous. There is no excuse and the FEMA director just came off looking like a complete jerk. Maybe, just maybe this will wake up enough people to throw this ass out of office.

[Jack Rabbit]

9. They were privatized

Welcome to neoconservative America, where nothing works, the vendors get paid for delivering nothing and you're unpatriotic if you point out those nasty little facts.

[Wind Dancer]

12. My heart is breaking!

There are no words!

[jobycom]

14. I've never seen anything this negligent. The NG is ALWAYS out

during hurricanes. They are called out before they make landfall, and are on the streets as the waves subside.

No one is running America. Cheney is dying somewhere, Rumsfield is probably combing his hair in front of a mirror, and W is drunk riding around in his airplane looking for his next free meal. We have no government anymore. All the taxes we paid to provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare are in Bush's and Cheney's pockets and are blowing away in the desert storms of Iraq, and when we need them to actually do something that has to be done, there is not enough sense nor leadership to get anything done.

It's not because New Orleans is black. It's because Bush is stupid and drunk, and the rest of his administration is completely incompetent.

Can we convict them of fraud, as well as treason and war crimes?

At the very least, maybe the this will wake up some of my southern states as to the real agenda of the Republicans. Way too late, but hopefully they'll understand it before the next disaster.

[milkyway]

15. The bush foot-dragging will cost thousands of American lives this week.

[Scout1071]

29. Don't you mean, AGAIN this week?

[me b zola]

16. AC's reporting tonight is exceptional

Now I feel bad for an awful comment that I made about him.

I'm sorry, Cooper :hi:

[Glenda]

22. Yeah, I don't watch him much...

but I was pretty impressed with his yelling at the FEMA guy.

[1932]

17. We're too busy "helping" in Iraq, I guess.

[smurfygirl]

18. all of a sudden a helicopter shows up.

cause anderson is bitching. I hope he goes to every neighborhood and does this. I like how he kept the pressure on the fed goverment saying where is the guard? and obviously little buddy couldn't answer that question just wanted to keep talking about FEMA.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

19. What the help could look like

I posted this in a separate thread and it has already dropped like a stone ( sorry for the duplication) But these were some of the ideas I had when I thought about what COULD be done in a national emergency. Don't we pay people in FEMA and Homeland security to answer this question? Anyway I thought we could:

Drop water,granola bars, sunscreen and insect repellent in air tight bags all over the f---ing place! Put it in bright orange fluorescent bags that would be easy to find and see.

Send in people with satellite phones who can relay information to a website so people can find out if their relatives are dead or alive.

Every church in the country and every town or city council and every private group possible should "adopt" a minimum of one Hurricane family or group of survivors. Bring them to your city, give them housing ,food and possible temporary jobs until they can get back home again.

Start a huge, government- backed Habitat for Humanity -type program that gives poorer, working class people decent housing to go back into. Not projects!! But individual houses scattered throughout the communities.

ENFORCE BETTER BUILDING CODES!!!! Build concrete houses with hurricane shutters. They can be attractive and safe at the same time! Use this crappy opportunity that fate has given us - don't let's build the same type of vulnerable housing on our coasts. (Maybe we need to build escapes and cupolas into the roofs.)

Learn from the communication black holes that are evident in this crisis. FIX THIS PROBLEM!! For heavens sake, isn't this what happened to the firefighters on 9/11? FEMA, Homeland Security - it's not worth shit if you cannot communicate on the ground.

Develop Mass transit!!! Look what happens when people get gridlocked into a deathtrap.

Establish "evacuation partners". Let the cities and town send out a survey that asks "In the event of an evacuation would you be willing to transport another citizen" Simple yes or no. If someone answers yes, then hopefully they could be put in touch with someone in their nearby area who is for whatever reason unable to evacuate independently. If a hurricane or natural disaster came to your area and you had been assigned an evacuation buddy - then you would make sure to take them with you.

This is all I could think of this moment. But I am thinking that if people live on the shoreline, it would not be unreasonable to store a rubber boat , life jackets, and supplies in your attic. We will see more of these super hurricanes because of global warning.

[annabanana]

28. I'm tellin' ya Phoebe... There are answers out there..

And there are people who know how to do this stuff.. But those aren't the people running the country right now.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

32. And the answers are not all that obscure.

I know there are tons of people who know all about this stuff. I guess we don't care about getting them into positions of authority. I heard that we were now "outsourcing" a lot of former FEMA responsibilities to private consultants as part of the FEMA reorganization under Homeland Security. Just another way that Bush has disemboweled real security in favor of cronyism

[JHB]

20. "Welcome to the 'Ownership Society'"

Don't own food, water, or a helicoter? Too bad!

[spanone]

24. They KNEW it was coming. This should have started a week ago.

[MidnightWind]

26. Anderson just said they found SIX bodies today!

Six--he was with an urban search and rescue today.

[faithnotgreed]

31. good for anderson - that is humanity right there

finally but its always important when its real