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For all the talk during last week's Senate Democratic caucus about how Joe Lieberman went South forty years ago to march for racial equality and justice, did anyone even ask about his oversight of the Homeland Security Department that's created Katrina Kids, the sickest ever?
Now, the children of Katrina who stayed longest in ramshackle government trailer parks in Baton Rouge are "the sickest I have ever seen in the U.S.," says Irwin Redlener, president of the Children's Health Fund and a professor at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. According to a new report by CHF and Mailman focusing on 261 displaced children, the well-being of the poorest Katrina kids has "declined to an alarming level" since the hurricane. Forty-one percent are anemic—twice the rate found in children in New York City homeless shelters, and more than twice the CDC's record rate for high-risk minorities. More than half the kids have mental-health problems. And 42 percent have respiratory infections and disorders that may be linked to formaldehyde and crowding in the trailers, the last of which FEMA finally closed in May.
The "recovery" from Katrina may be worse than the initial response itself:
The "unending bureaucratic haggling" at federal and state levels over how to provide services and rebuild health centers for the Gulf's poor has made a bad situation much worse, says Redlener: "As awful as the initial response to Katrina looked on television, it's been dwarfed by the ineptitude and disorganization of the recovery."
The criminal neglect is ongoing and could certainly benefit from some, um, Oversight:
The agency's case-management program also "has yet to provide any services for thousands of families," according to the report, and funding for the program expires in March. Redlener is optimistic that funds will be extended at least through mid-2010, since all that will require is "a stroke of the pen" from the new administration. But, he adds, he's "not Pollyanna-ish about how rapidly" the disaster-planning system will get its act together and come up with long-term plans for the impoverished families—or whether that will be accomplished in time "to make sure this doesn't happen again" with the next storm.
Tell me again, Senate Democrats, about how denying Joe Lieberman his Senate Homeland Security and Government Oversight gavel was all about retribution? No, it was about incompetence, criminal neglect, poisoning of children, crony contracting, and worthless government services -- all of which were enabled by the independent Senator from Connecticut.
Heckuva job, Joe.
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Why is the comments section turned off??
Last week, Democrats guaranteed oversight of Katrina will never happen.
Is this where we all yell Shock Doctrine?
Thius is absolutely disgraceful to the ullest extent imaginable.
This guy is beyond dispecable.
Tha senate is dispicable for all the acolades they dropped on him the day he was “confirmed.”
If he’s a democrat, I am ashamed to be one.
I’m guessing the Senate Democrats knew about this, truly I’m a paranoid type, and wanted Joe to be outed and held responsible.
Is it even possible?
CNN has been doing a 2 part special on NO & Katrina…2nd part on right now; focus on the crime problem.
By giving him the gavel, the dems were covering their asses because they’ve done nothing about this situation during the last two years.
Unreal…
In many ways the Katrina tragedy is worse than the Iraq war because it is happening right here and we know about what is going on. Holy Joe should have to go to Nola and live there for a long time in the midst of the devastation.
I’d rather send him to Palestine… with a one way ticket.
These children will suffer their inflicted maladies for their lifetimes — few of these syndromes have a cure. It’s amazing that we are only learning this now. How can Mary Landrieu look Lieberman straight in the face? How can Barack Obama?
How on earth did mary pull off a reelection?
What I’ve heard is the opinion that she is one of the few pols. who looked better post-Katrina b/c she has kept working really hard.
i think it’s just another bit of evidence that oversight is just not that important to our congress critters. two years of hearing watching is in line with this :(
Joe wins, kids lose. But hell, they don’t vote anyway, and they are poor and don’t have money to donate neither.
Susan Collins & Joe LIEberman were fine with Americans drowning in their attics. In fact, when asked why she didn’t subpoena anyone in the White House after Hurricane Katrina, Collins said she was fine with their response that they didn’t do anything wrong. Uh ha. Nice. Spit.
On what? Certiainly not for those who needed it.
I was really angry when dipshit was given the gavel back but now i’m so pissed I can’t even put it in words.
Please Digg.
Those gloating Lieberfuckers can wear this one.
Yeah I guess they just couldn’t kick in the $250,000 payola to the DSCC.
Little deadbeats.
Aren’t we all complicit in this drawn out atrocity, which might be considered ethnic/economic cleansing? Unlike the Middle East, we’re close enough to do something, we’ve done nothing but complain. As long as we act like impotent fools, we’ll be treated like it by people like Joe and the Collegials. The Government has the upper hand, as they obviously do not fear the people at all. Well, perhaps a bit, there is that Combat Brigade in Colorado Springs. A response which would seem to be overreaction, judging from the manner in which the police have been protecting and serving the public lately, as evidenced at the respective Party Conventions. But in the main, those in power are contemptuous of the Hoi Polloi in general and I believe they have a special place in their hearts for the netroots in particular.
A classic case of sticks and stones…
Amazing that this did not, apparently, come up on Meet The Press today. Tom Brokaw is quite the little toady.
I think she did keep pushing to get money (not enough), she caught on that Bush was not helping and not to be believed…
THey are that. With Joe some will die sooner than others, much sooner.
From my looks at the Homeland Security website, Lieberman farmed out all of the Katrina hearings to Landrieu. I didn’t have time to look at all of them, but never saw one where Lieberman participated. Landrieu’s hearings seemed better than the ones Lieberman held, but not much. That is odd, since Landrieu had her state to represent, and you would think that would make a difference. Maybe Lieberman had his thumb on Landrieu to keept things under control (anyone know?).
I would have loved to see Tester organize a hearing on Katrina, but he only ran one or two hearings that I saw, on anything. But Tester had an interesting range of witnesses, and Tester can think better on his feet and ask questions pertinent to something (rather than nonsense). After Tester, seems to me Carper would have done next best job.
The Senate Homeland Security Committee hearings that Lieberman ran have mostly been wastelands of officious dithering and desultory but rampant government pooh-bah-ism. Little Dukedomes of self-satisfied unreason.
From what I saw, maybe half a dozen were good. Most seemed a complete waste of time.
Maybe Obama is banking the almost perfectly inept and soporific nature of Lieberman’s rule. Suppose Lieberman did decide to go after Obama. I think it would be foolish for Lieberman to do that for his own sake, but he has been known to show very poor judgment before, right?
Well, suppose Lieberman did decide to go after Obama, who would pay any attention? Could Lieberman pull off a Waxman hearing, even if he tried.
I think a special very honorific and distinguished committee just focusing on the Census Bureau should be created just for Lieberman. The Census people know what they are doing, Lieberman could do little harm, and would be buried in complete, but very distinguished, obscurity.
Speaking for myself and many many people in my community.. No, we are not complicit. We sent crews of people with many truckloads of supplies down on numerous occasions to help with reconstruction efforts over at least two years.. Welcomed victims into our community, housed, employed and fed folks who suffered the worst.
What are the chances Lamont will run in 2012? If he doesn’t is there someone of the same calibre we can help throw Short Ride under a train?
As did my little community of Gulfport, FL.
I lived in Gulfport once.
You’d probably still recognize it.
*sigh* Why is he always right…
Ned was on Rachel’s show with Alison Stewart after the caucus this week; I have no inside info, but I presume that was to keep his profile up among us true believers.
As did Austin and several Veterans organizations. A lot of Charitable organizations were all to happy to let this slip into the background as were the majority of the National media. Could we have pressed harder on our elected Representatives for more, faster, and better targeted aid? In retrospect, it just seems like perhaps there was more that we needed to do to bring pressure on the Government for their lack of appropriate response.
I saw that segment online, not having cable. He certainly didn’t pooh pooh the idea.
VFP organized a number of the caravans we sent to NO.
I agree with Eureka Springs. I went down to LA and MS four times. It was fun. But untrained people can only do so much, and I saw a lot of problems from having well intentioned (and sometimes very bull headed) people trying to do things they did not know how to do. Things as simple as knowing how to pull down a trashed shed or gutted home, to how to pack a truck, or pick up and move somthing big and heavy, caused lots of wasted time and some hazardous situations. The local people who were in charge of organizing were overwhelmed. Also, along with honest well-intentioned volunteers, came thieves and conmen who would steal things while dong their ‘volunteer’ clean-ups and repairs. Also problems in dealing with locals who acted in odd and self-destructive ways, and needed some kind of skilled spocial work intervention, which was not often available.
Spontaneous citizen action only goes so far when the disaster is huge.
So, I hold Bush/Cheney responsible, not only for incompetent, and probably malevolent, government action. I saw very little evidence of any efforts to help the volunteers who went down there. It was all religious groups and community organizations, along with a very overworked Americorpt (I hope I got that name right).
I think his exact response was a very political, “You never say never” — although Ned always seems very awkward when he tries to act like a politician. He should just say, “Of course I’m running, the polls now show I would trounce the douchebag!”
I think you are exactly right. Very piecemeal, even in some of the best neighbors. Still lots of homeless and the wrecked justice system and school system. It will take years, and the levies are not considered what they need to be. Failure at every level of govt, but alot of that true before Katrina. Long history of disastrous schools that left lots of poor kids behind and out or not educated.
People from all over the country pitched in to help. The role of the government SHOULD have been to provide the services and organization that private citizens couldn’t. We all know how it turned out.
For some reason, I am reminded of the official in the Clinton administration who said in reference to a genocide in progress, “The U.S. doesn’t have a horse in the East Timor race.” The Gulf coast is a lot closer than East Timor but apparently the U.S. government doesn’t feel that they have a stake in it.
Heh, that would be a very unpolitical thing to say, Teddy! Despite being true…! ;-)
One of the biggest wastes I saw where skilled volunteers (electricians and carpenters) who ended up just diddling around and not really fixing things the way they should be because of a lack of materials, or complete confusion by FEMA and other authortities in charge of reconstruction.
I heard things like “Well, we can’t fix this right because no materials, so we will slap something together that will get them through the next year, after which it will fall apart”
Or, because this old person is out of their head and won’t let us really repair it because they think we are fooling them into getting them out of their house and then we will tear it down. (and no volunteer was going to tear it down!)
Or they won’t trust us inside the house because they think we might be theives.
Or, we can’t get guidance on the plan for reconstruction. Or we can’t get guidance on how the insurance regs will be interpreted from anybody. or… or…
Those kind of things caused a huge waste of time. I saw lots of very skilled volunteers being forced to diddle around rather than being as productive as they could be.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep saying it until at least 2012: Juck Loe Fieberman.
My contempt for Joe Lieberman knows no bounds.
———————————————-
Teddy said, “Tell me again, Senate Democrats, about how denying Joe Lieberman his Senate Homeland Security and Government Oversight gavel was all about retribution? No, it was about incompetence, criminal neglect, poisoning of children, crony contracting, and worthless government services — all of which were enabled by the independent Senator from Connecticut.”
And now the Democratic senators who voted to give Short Ride a free ride on the Democratic Party bus are complicit in the incompetence, criminal neglect, poisoning of children, crony contracting, and worthless government services that were enabled by that odious person.
Accessories after the fact, probably, but complicit.
For once, I am glad to have two Republican U.S. senators from my state. I do not have to bear the shame and anger I would feel if a Democratic senator purporting to represent me had been involved in the Lieberman appeasement.
Dugg
LIE-berman never has been held accountable for anything,lets start with Enron, Ketrina, his back stabbing this and the last two PRESIDENT ELECTION, yes he stabed both Gore and Kerry in the back. and he is just a JUNIOR(Senator) but he holds both Homeland Security Dept., and the head over seer of the Defenc Dept., Pecurement Head. How can he be the HEAD of these DEPT., as just a JUNIOR (Senator) from CT. Bening a member of AIPAC could have alot to do with it maby, could be. I just wish some one on one of these WEB sites would just list all of LIE-bermans Back STABING.