Where's Your Bullhorn Now Asshole?

Via Karen Wehrstein at dailykos, the mayor of New Orleans:

"RN: I have no idea what they're doing, but I'll tell you this. You know, God is looking down on all this... and if theyre not doing everything in their power to save people, they are going to pay the price. Because every day that we delay, people are dying... and they're dying by the hundreds, I'm willing to bet you.

We're getting reports in calling that are breaking my heart, from people saying, 'I'm in my attic...I can't take it any more. The water's up to my neck. I don't think I can hold out. And that's happening as we speak.

And you know what really upsets me, Garland. We told everybody the importance of the 17th Street Canal issue. We said, please, please take care of this, we don't care what you do, figure it out."

The situation in New Orleans is extremely fucked. And I'm utterly amazed, ashamed, and angry how quickly NO has turned from a cosmopolitan city into the fucking third world. And some people deserve blame for this, this catastrophic fuck-up. I don't know entirely where it belongs. But we need to ask these questions and get some answers. Because this is unacceptable. And this isn't politics. This isn't about playing politics at all. People with responsibility fucked up and people are dying. You have drug addicts with guns roaming the streets and jonesing for a fix, and fucking dead bodies floating being eaten by rats. And someone needs to take responsibility for it. When politicians fuck up, it's not politics, to affix blame. It's not some petty partisan "I'm hoping to capitalize on this in the midterms" disrespect to those afflicted politics. This should not have happened. This situation should have been prevented. And someone is responsible for it, and they should pay the consequence of it. And they still don't know what the fuck they're doing.

And yet the politicians continue to be politicians. Congratulating each other for doing nothing and saying nice words. Check out this video, via Crooks and Liars of Anderson Cooper giving the business to Senator Mary Landrieu trying to get her to understand the situation in New Orleans while she congratulates Clinton and Bush for saying nice words. Read the transcript of the interview with the mayor of New Orleans as he begs these useless politicians for real leadership.

RN: I need reinforcements. I need troops, man. I need 500 buses. Man, they were talking about... you know, one of the briefings we had, they were talking about getting public school bus drivers to come down here ... I'm like, you've got to be kidding me! This is a national disaster! Get every doggone Greyhound busline in the country, and get their asses moving to New Orleans. That's them thinking small, man.... this is a major major major deal!

And I can't emphasize this enough, man -- this is crazy! I've got 15,000-20,000 people over at the Convention Centre, it's bursting at the seams. The poor people in Plaquemines parish... they're air-vacc'ing people over here in New Orleans... we don't have anything and we're sharing with our brothers in Plaquemines parish. It's awful down here, man.



Really, what the fuck is wrong with these people? Where's the fucking leadership? Aren't we supposed to be prepared for a disaster like this? And honestly, can you really tell me you think this would have happened under the watch of any other president? The unique combination of incompetence and indifference has consequences. And that's the truth. And I really don't see what's so fucking wrong with saying so.