Delivery of three tons of food postponed by Bush’s visit

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On Friday, September 3, three tons of food ready for helicopter delivery to stranded residents of St. Bernard Parish and Algiers Point sat in trucks on the Crescent City Connection because all air traffic–including emergency rescue traffic–was halted so that Bush could enter New Orleans and announce that “the results are not enough.”

Thanks to Just Ain’t Right for alerting me to this story. Amtrak trains, U.S. Forest Serivce carriers, and Red Cross supplies were all prevented from reaching people because FEMA thought–well, who knows what they thought?–and then food was kept from hurricane victims because of a visit from Bush. Sandbags were ready to patch the levee, but the Blackhawk helicopter that was to block them never arrived, causing waters to rise at a deadly rate. Then people were forced to leave their companion animals to starve, drown, or die of starvation.

There is no way to spin this into anything acceptable, no matter how many late-night phone calls Karen Hughes makes or how many memos Karl Rove scribbles. I have talked with Louisianians of every poliitcal persuasion, and they all say the same thing: What happened was disgusting, and there can be no reasonable explanation for it.

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PLEASE—BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please do your part and help us reach our $150,000 membership goal by May 31.

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