Katrina...Bush...McCain

Although I have done versions of this before, this was inspired by a Daily Kos Diary:

This is what happened Monday, Aug. 29, 2005...the day Katrina hit, John McCain's 69th birthday...the day America realized that Republicans don't give a shit about Americas.

Hurricane Katrina:



I remember the radar images from the weather channel the night before landfall. I remember distincly watching it and thinking, "My god...that's going to be bad." I also remember thinking that the government had better be ready to get people out and to deal with the situation.

I was right...it was going to be really, really bad. I mean THIS bad:



While Mississippi and Louisiana were getting slammed by Hurricane Katrina and Americans were dying, THIS is what Bush and McCain were doing:



From CurrentTV comes this amazing footage from WITHIN Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans:



And what were George Bush and John McCain doing while New Orleans was being destroyed and Americans were dying:



Meanwhile, New Orleans was underwater:







And my friend from Mississippi tells me that Mississippi was hit even worse. Years later she was telling me her mother was still in shock from what happened in Mississippi...probably full blown post-traumatic stress syndrome, with minimal help from either insurance companies or the government.

These were the scenes in New Orleans for days after the hurricane: (graphic)







And Bush and McCain were doing this when Louisiana and Mississippi were struggling:



Meanwhile Al Gore, on his own initiative and at his own expense, was helping airlift some 270 Katrina evacuees:



And Barack Obama was equally active as a Senator trying to get aid to the victims and support the recover.

And Jimmy Carter has been a leader in rebuilding housing for low income residents of New Orleans through Habitat for Humanity:



Why do Republicans hate America? Oh yeah...it is part of their philosophy to drown America in a bathtub. This is how Republican guru Grover Norquist put it:

"Cutting the government in half in one generation is both an ambitious and reasonable goal," Norquist stated in May 2000. "If we work hard we will accomplish this and more by 2025. Then the conservative movement can set a new goal. I have a recommendation: To cut government in half again by 2050"

The death toll of Hurricane Katrina is a direct result of this Republican philosophy of drowning America in a bathtub. Many Americans drowned that day...and George Bush and John McCain at cake while those Americans died.

And the neglect by Republicans continued. Eleven Repbublicans in the House of Representatives, the Katrina 11, who had no problem giving Halliburton no bid contracts despite incompetence and corruption, voted against aid to Katrina victims. I have been fighting to defeat the Katrina 11 and turn their districts blue ever since. Joe Barton in particular is a nasty, anti-science scrooge of a Republican.

And the neglect by Republicans continued. Even two years after Katrina, my friend from Mississippi wrote this about the situation victims found themselves in:

Most of the people who DID receive money from the insurance companies received only a fraction of what it would cost to replace what they lost. There was the on going battle of wind vs water issue. That even Trent Lott had to deal with. He sued state farm and they settle out of court kind of quietly... However, when Bush visited the coast he promised Trent that he would rebuild his waterfront house. I think it would be interesting to look into what really happened in that case. No one I talked to was happy with the insurance settlements that they received. Now premiums are so high that many people can only afford the basic coverage. Insurance companies were boasting at how much money they gained last year, mainly because they didn't pay the proper amount of money to the people who lost their homes in the disaster. Also, many people have not had the money to fix or rebuild their house and today is the 2 year anniversary.

And George Bush and John McCain did nothing...except eat cake: