September 7, 2005

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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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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