Department of Other Priorities

President Nero plays a made up chord while New Orleans floods......

Our alleged leader cut short his vacation by two days to go back to Washington, and play guitar. Doesn't look too worried about the utter destruction and desolation in New Orleans, does he? How about initiating a temporary withdrawal from Iraq so that there is enough National Guardsmen and equipment available in Louisiana?

40,000-50,000 people in the superdome, including seriously injured people, and evacuees from the Hospitals. There are no running water or sewage facilities -- and no power. Temperatures are in he 90's within the building

One man just committed suicide by jumping. 'Unrest' is growing within the superdome - and their are there are now military as well civilian police on the scene.

There are now several; major fires in view of city. There is evidently a fair amount of oil and gas floating on the flood waters.

Water is still rising and the Mayor is just now being evacuated by helicopter as City hall is now surrounded by water that can only be reached by small boat, water is about 3 feet deep at the steps of City Hall.

80% of New Orleans is totally submerged now, and will likely become 100% submerged tonight

Apparently there weren't enough helicopters to rescue people trapped in attics and on rooftops while also shoring up the levee: too much of the equipment is overseas in Iraq.

And as Bob Harris notes:

When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.

Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.

Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The [U.S. Army Corps of Engineers] never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain.
And this was reported at the time. Not as a partisan attack. As a public safety issue.
At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.

In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness.

On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, told the Times-Picayune: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

And ole President Bunny Pants is still making stump speeches about Iraq and 'Merican Resolve, and other meaningless phrases.

Tags: Politics