It's Been 4 Years Since 9/11...

[MarkDel]

Mark is the real deal, I suggest that you try to learn from his wisdom.  The particular instance when he did inform me on something that was going on that was nto reported in the media, everything he said would happen did, or, at least, I could see that it had, since the media did not reprt what he had disclosed to me in full.

Correct me if I'm wrong here but Mr Del worked for his local Congressman in DC.  Now he owns a small publishing company in Florida.  While I agree that he probably has better insights into "how Washington works" ... I find it very hard to buy that he "knows the real scoop" about what happened with NOLA.

Maybe I'm just a cynic but I just don't believe everything I read on the internet.

Wakie,

You make a legitimate point. Normally, I would never put much stock into what someone posts on the internet in a forum like this. However, I have in the past proven that I have access to pretty good information. For example, I told you all a day before it happened that Edwards would be the VP choice of Kerry. See this thread... https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=5319.0

Also, I told John Ford, Supersoulty and a few others some other information that turned out to be true. And in one case (the Sandy Berger situation) I told them months before it (his sentencing) happened and why it would happen. I won't go into any more details, but let's just say I've proven my "ins" when it comes to the Capitol Hill scene.

But again, your overall point would normally make a lot of sense, so I can't really condemn what you've said. But here's a couple reasons why I get such good information...

1. In addition to working for a Republican Congressman I later worked for the R.N.C. at the Republican National Headquarters in D.C. This fostered many contacts.

2. Some of the people who were friends and colleagues may have been low level people 15 years ago, but some of them have now risen to positions of great prominence in both parties, not to mention those friends who went the "lobbyist" route. I have one friend who works on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' staff at a very high level...another who is an Under Secretary of Defense...another who reports directly to Ken Mehlman...etc, etc...in fact, the only important Republican figures in the executive branch who I don't have indirect links to are George Bush himself and Karl Rove! And I also have some GREAT contacts on the Democratic side, mainly due to personal and college friendships. One in particular is VERY, VERY useful.

3. There are a host of people I went to college with, friends and acquaintances, who are now very prominent in government. As much as I hated the Ivy League experience as a young man, I can still trade on it if I need to, or want to, as I frequently do to obtain information relating to business and politics. It continues to astound me how the Ivy League elitists (many of whom I personally despise) will continue to treat me as a friend and confide in me just because I'm "part of the club." I don't tell them anything of importance to my life, but these clowns will treat me like their best friend just because we went to Princeton together. Silly? Yes, but practical and useful.

So in closing, I'd say I understand your point and you're certainly free to believe what you want, but if I were you, I wouldn't let our political and philosophical differences cloud your judgement.

[??????????]

Wakie,

I can back up what MarkDel said. What he told me over the phone was rather credible.

[12th Doctor]

Wakie,

I can back up what MarkDel said. What he told me over the phone was rather credible.

Ditto

[The Duke]

This post is pure spin, taking things that are true and phrasing them in such a way as to minimize the credibility of your opponents, through selective language and strategic omission.  Typical Wakie.  You even manage to lie when you're telling the truth.

Nice inflammatory beginning.  Typical Ford.  Someone states basic facts and offers some opinion and you say they are lying.  You have a definite future in politics.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

How many members of Congress are there?  535 (435 reps, 100 senators).  How many people work for each one?  Let's be conservative and say 20 in each office.  This means that at any given time there are 10,700 people with the same access that Mark had over 10 years ago.  Now keep in mind that there is turnover when people leave their jobs or members of Congress retire or lose an election.

Geez, how do we maintain ANY secrets in this country?!

Not every member of Congress has access to every piece of info.  But Mark, 10 year removed Congressional employee, 2 weeks after something happens, is able to get info which the national press corps cannot get.

I guess I just find it a little unlikely, ok?  You go ahead and believe it though.  Everyone is welcome to make up their own minds.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Well ... if he told us what it was (not just say "I know the truth no one is telling you") then I could provide reasons for why I agree or disagree.  But as it is ... I just think the story that he has some secret sources into some unknown truth to be unlikely.

Thanks, I too think I have a future in politics.

We pretty much don't maintain secrets in this country.

Given that his predicitions have usually been borne out, and are substatiated by information readily available to the public (Including the shocking revelations about Sandy Berger which are corroborated by information that came out 11 years ago in the major media, but simply required the insider information to be properly pieced together).

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Wakie, I have occasionally had information before the media, most congressional staffs, and an occasional sitting officeholder.  It's just a matter of being in the right place at the right time.

The media is pretty stupid, so that's not hard. Around 3:15  AM ET on Wednesday November 8th, 2000, I figured out that FL was too close to call. It took the media half an hour to figure that out. Poor media got scooped by half an hour on the outcome of the Presidential eleciton by some random undergrad.

Big deal, I was looking at the raw vote totals coming out of FL and said about a half hour before Pat Caddell did that the networks miscalled FL.
I called PA here by 3:15 PM in 2004.

Wait, you Republicans aren't supposed to say that the early exit polls are accurate.

[freedomburns]

Well I do have something to add, actually.

[freedomburns]

The mainstream media is turning against the Bush administration on the whole Katrnia fiasco in emergency response.  Here are some good examples of this. 

Bush below 40% now?  That is significant.  See what you get when you put guys like these podunk Texax yahoos in the White House?  It is truly a travesty, and a tragedy.  What else are they up to now that will come to light if the climate gets hotter around them?  What is the mainstream media ready for?  ABC radio news just broadcast a bunch of stuff on David Ray Griffin.  I love him.  He is so clear.

Here you go.  Enjoy.  You can find the links yourself with a quick search:

Mainstream Media says Time for Bush to Go // Cover-Up: Toxic Waters 'Will Make New Orleans Unsafe for a Decade' // Bush regime hires crooked company to hide the bodies


After Katrina Fiasco, Time for Bush to Go
    By Gordon Adams
    The Baltimore Sun

    Thursday 08 September 2005

    The disastrous federal response to Katrina exposes a record of incompetence, misjudgment and ideological blinders that should lead to serious doubts that the Bush administration should be allowed to continue in office.

    When taxpayers have raised, borrowed and spent $40 billion to $50 billion a year for the past four years for homeland security but the officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency cannot find their own hands in broad daylight for four days while New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast swelter, drown and die, it is time for them to go.

    When funding for water works and levees in the gulf region is repeatedly cut by an administration that seems determined to undermine the public responsibility for infrastructure in America, despite clear warnings that the infrastructure could not survive a major storm, it seems clear someone is playing politics with the public trust.

    When rescue and medical squads are sitting in Manassas and elsewhere in northern Virginia and foreign assistance waits at airports because the government can't figure out how to insure the workers, how to use the assistance or which jurisdiction should be in charge, it is time for the administration to leave town.

    When President Bush stays on vacation and attends social functions for two days in the face of disaster before finally understanding that people are starving, crying out and dying, it is time for him to go.

    When FEMA officials cannot figure out that there are thousands stranded at the New Orleans convention center - where people died and were starving - and fussed ineffectively about the same problems in the Superdome, they should be fired, not praised, as the president praised FEMA Director Michael Brown in New Orleans last week.

    When Mr. Bush states publicly that "nobody could anticipate a breach of the levee" while New Orleans journalists, Scientific American, National Geographic, academic researchers and Louisiana politicians had been doing precisely that for decades, right up through last year and even as Hurricane Katrina passed over, he should be laughed out of town as an impostor.

    When repeated studies of New Orleans make it clear that tens of thousands of people would be unable to evacuate the city in case of a flood, lacking both money and transportation, but FEMA makes no effort before the storm to commandeer buses and move them to safety, it is time for someone to be given his walking papers.

    When the president makes Sen. Trent Lott's house in Pascagoula, Miss., the poster child for rebuilding while hundreds of thousands are bereft of housing, jobs, electricity and security, he betrays a careless insensitivity that should banish him from office.

    When the president of the United States points the finger away from the lame response of his administration to Katrina and tries to finger local officials in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, La., as the culprits, he betrays the unwillingness of this administration to speak truth and hold itself accountable. As in the case of the miserable execution of policy in Iraq, Mr. Bush and Karl Rove always have some excuse for failure other than their own misjudgments.

    We have a president who is apparently ill-informed, lackadaisical and narrow-minded, surrounded by oil baron cronies, religious fundamentalist crazies and right-wing extremists and ideologues. He has appointed officials who give incompetence new meaning, who replace the positive role of government with expensive baloney.

    They rode into office in a highly contested election, spouting a message of bipartisanship but determined to undermine the federal government in every way but defense (and, after 9/11, one presumed, homeland security). One with Grover Norquist, they were determined to shrink Washington until it was "small enough to drown in a bathtub." Katrina has stripped the veil from this mean-spirited strategy, exposing the greed, mindlessness and sheer profiteering behind it.

    It is time to hold them accountable - this ugly, troglodyte crowd of Capital Beltway insiders, rich lawyers, ideologues, incompetents and their strap-hangers should be tarred, feathered and ridden gracefully and mindfully out of Washington and returned to their caves, clubs in hand.

    (by Gordon Adams, director of security policy studies at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, was senior White House budget official for national security in the Clinton administration.)



Wednesday, September 7, 2005


Gulf Coast Recovery: Porch politics


SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD


Does anyone else feel like storming the Bastille? It's
hard not to, when faced with how the Bush family has
responded to the devastation in the wake of Hurricane
Katrina.


In a serious let-them-eat-cake moment, first lady
Laura Bush said that mothers must get their kids to
school, as doing so gives children "a sense of
normalcy."


Sounds great, but, um, was she seriously asking people
who had watched their homes disappear to get their
kids in school within a week? We're guessing most
parents are putting hot meals and warm baths for the
little ones above all else.


Then her husband made the unthinkably moronic remarks
about his partying days in New Orleans and how he
looks forward once again, to chillin' at Mississippi
Sen. Trent Lott's house. "Out of the rubbles of Trent
Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's
going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward
to sitting on the porch."


Well thank goodness someone said something about the
devastation endured by the Lott family! Because of all
the images we'd seen from this disaster -- bodies
floating face down in filthy streets, children bawling
for food, people picking through trash amid violent
outbreaks throughout New Orleans -- it was the thought
of Lott's devastated porch that was keeping us awake
at night.


Now, don't get us wrong -- we're not happy the senator
has lost his home. We're just stunned (and we know we
shouldn't be) that our president is stupid enough to
say something about one wealthy man's home while
surrounded by the poor, the sick and the displaced.
His mother, former first lady Barbara Bush, seemed
equally clueless, as she toured the Houston Astrodome
where thousands of Katrina victims are being
temporarily housed.


"This is working very well for them," she said.


Which part, Barb? The part where they lost everything
they've owned? She then added, "Almost everyone I've
talked to says we're going to move to Houston." Well,
of course they do. They've been living in their own
filth, starving, fearing rape, or worse, for five days
at the Superdome in New Orleans. But why let that
image mar a perfectly good sound bite, eh?


Then again, what does one expect from an
administration that allowed a guy whose most
formidable resume entry was working for (and getting
fired by) the International Arabian Horse Association
to run the Federal Emergency Management Agency? Yup,
that was Michael Brown's big gig before his buddy --
Bush's 2000 campaign manager Joe Allbaugh -- got him a
job at FEMA. But it seems like Brown, who admitted he
didn't know how bad things were in New Orleans until
he saw it on the news, doesn't have anything to worry
about -- his job is secure until he's shamed into
leaving it -- if that's even possible. True, the
Department of Homeland Security has continued to rob
FEMA of its emergency response power, but still --
it's embarrassing to hear Bush say things like,
"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." Perhaps the
president needs to catch media reports of Brown's
bungling before he realizes that Brown's gotta go. We
don't want cake, and we don't want a "Brownie" -- we
want a government agency that will live up to its name
and respond to emergencies, pronto.

[freedomburns]

(cont)

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article311818.ece
September 11, 2005 by the lndependent/UK 
Cover-Up: Toxic Waters 'Will Make New Orleans Unsafe for a Decade' 
by Geoffrey Lean
 
Toxic chemicals in the New Orleans flood waters will make the city unsafe for full human habitation for a decade, a US government official has told The Independent on Sunday. And, he added, the Bush administration is covering up the danger.

In an exclusive interview, Hugh Kaufman, an expert on toxic waste and responses to environmental disasters at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said the way the polluted water was being pumped out was increasing the danger to health.

The pollution was far worse than had been admitted, he said, because his agency was failing to take enough samples and was refusing to make public the results of those it had analyzed."Inept political hacks" running the clean-up will imperil the health of low-income migrant workers by getting them to do the work.

His intervention came as President Bush's approval ratings fell below 40 per cent for the first time. Yesterday, Britain's Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, turned the screw by criticizing the US President's opposition to the Kyoto protocol on global warming. He compared New Orleans to island nations such as the Maldives, which are threatened by rising sea levels. Other US sources spelt out the extent of the danger from one of America's most polluted industrial areas, known locally as "Cancer Alley". The 66 chemical plants, refineries and petroleum storage depots churn out 600m lb of toxic waste each year. Other dangerous substances are in site storage tanks or at the port of New Orleans. No one knows how much pollution has escaped through damaged plants and leaking pipes into the "toxic gumbo" now drowning the city. Mr Kaufman says no one is trying to find out.

Few people are better qualified to judge the extent of the problem. Mr Kaufman, who has been with the EPA since it was founded 35 years ago, helped to set up its hazardous waste program. After serving as chief investigator to the EPA's ombudsman, he is now senior policy analyst in its Office of Solid Wastes and Emergency Response. He said the clean-up needed to be "the most massive public works exercise ever done", adding: "It will take 10 years to get everything up and running and safe."

Mr Kaufman claimed the Bush administration was playing down the need for a clean-up: the EPA has not been included in the core White House group tackling the crisis. "Its budget has been cut and inept political hacks have been put in key positions," Mr Kaufman said. "All the money for emergency response has gone to buy guns and cowboys - which don't do anything when a hurricane hits. We were less prepared for this than we would have been on 10 September 2001."

He said the water being pumped out of the city was not being tested for pollution and would damage Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi river, and endanger people using it downstream.

© 2005 Independent News & Media (UK) Ltd.
 




http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2005/09/drowning-by-numbers.html


New Orleans is beginning to look like Funeralgate, supersized.


FEMA has relieved volunteers of their emergency mortuary services in Louisiana only, and contracted out to Kenyon, a "wholly-owned subsidiary of Service Corporation International" of Houston, Texas.


Are the alarms sounding yet? LightUpTheDarkness reminds us why they should be:


You may remember Service Corporation International, SCI, as it was part of the case against confirming Alberto Gonzales due to his involvement in the Texas and Florida scandals known as Funeralgate. As we covered back in February, Service Corporation International was "recycling" graves, removing the bodies that were there originally and throwing them in the woods to use the space to house new customers at two Jewish cemeteries in Florida . Service Corporation International, the world’s largest funeral service company, is headed by Robert Waltrip, a longtime friend and generous financial patron of the Bush family. Eliza May was head of the Texas Funeral Services Commission when it began receiving complaints about unlicensed embalmers, and sued when she was fired. Gonzales kept Bush from testifying in this case and was also under scrutiny when a memo surfaced that was sent to his office when he was Bush’s gubernatorial counsel. The memo suggested possible improprieties by two funeral commissioners with ties to SCI and Joeseph Allbaugh, Bush’s former chief of staff in Austin, 2000 presidential campaign manager, who now serves as director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The case was suddenly settled in November 2001. The Menorah Gardens case in Florida, involving 72 families, was settled in Oct of 2004.


So, coincident with the emergence of happy talk and silver linings - Sure, it's bad, but New Orleans rescuers find fewer dead than feared - the duties of processing Louisiana's fresh kill is consigned to Bush Texas mafia with a criminal record including desecration of human remains, "recycling" graves and dumping bodies.


There is a deeply bizarre note to this, because to anyone who has paid attention to this slow-motion atrocity the bodies will be hidden in plain sight. (There is pointed irony, as well: in a bid at boosting government transparancy, China has just announced that it will no longer treat death tolls from natural disasters as state secrets.) The arrival of SCI in New Orleans is like a shredder truck pulling up outside the offices of a crooked firm expecting a forensic audit. The evidence - the bodies that are still tied to lamp posts - could be going up in the smoke of one of the city's uncontained fires, or weighted down and dumped in the bayou. It's not unimaginable - SCI has already done this.


Can they hide all the dead? They're going to try to hide the living. The head of FEMA's housing effort, Brad Fair, says that 200,000 evacuees may need "temporary" shelter for five years.


Now why, rather than offer aid which could lead, with speed, to a permanent solution in accord with the wishes of survivors, has the government determined to withhold the financial assistance necessary to support self-determination, and is spending more - five years of even basic food and shelter add up - to deny them autonomy?


That's a scary question. The challenge to a long-disengaged populace: does it have the courage to ask, and maybe answer, scary questions?



fb

[freedomburns]

This post is pure spin, taking things that are true and phrasing them in such a way as to minimize the credibility of your opponents, through selective language and strategic omission.  Typical Wakie.  You even manage to lie when you're telling the truth.

Nice inflammatory beginning.  Typical Ford.  Someone states basic facts and offers some opinion and you say they are lying.  You have a definite future in politics.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

How many members of Congress are there?  535 (435 reps, 100 senators).  How many people work for each one?  Let's be conservative and say 20 in each office.  This means that at any given time there are 10,700 people with the same access that Mark had over 10 years ago.  Now keep in mind that there is turnover when people leave their jobs or members of Congress retire or lose an election.

Geez, how do we maintain ANY secrets in this country?!

Not every member of Congress has access to every piece of info.  But Mark, 10 year removed Congressional employee, 2 weeks after something happens, is able to get info which the national press corps cannot get.

I guess I just find it a little unlikely, ok?  You go ahead and believe it though.  Everyone is welcome to make up their own minds.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Well ... if he told us what it was (not just say "I know the truth no one is telling you") then I could provide reasons for why I agree or disagree.  But as it is ... I just think the story that he has some secret sources into some unknown truth to be unlikely.

Thanks, I too think I have a future in politics.

We pretty much don't maintain secrets in this country.

Given that his predicitions have usually been borne out, and are substatiated by information readily available to the public (Including the shocking revelations about Sandy Berger which are corroborated by information that came out 11 years ago in the major media, but simply required the insider information to be properly pieced together).

OMG, we just can't get off the Sandy Berger thing, can we?  ARe those documents are still stuck in his skivvies?  Sheesh man.

[Wakie]

OMG, we just can't get off the Sandy Berger thing, can we?  ARe those documents are still stuck in his skivvies?  Sheesh man.

Well, if he had the scoop on the Sandy Berger thing early then that is a legitimate scoop.  I can't get too excited about the John Edwards thing though since most polls for months beforehand were predicting Edwards.  Again, everyone should decide for themself if that is a scoop.

I do stand by what I've said, Del is a smart guy who makes many good points.  But he is very excitable and his style can be very inflammatory.  Also, I have a hard time with anyone who says they have "the real scoop" and offers the justification of "trust me".  Sorry guys, I'd have this same opinion if he was a liberal.

[J. J.]

Freedumbburn[iout[/i], there are still people in trailers from last year's hurricanes in FL.  They are not being "hidden."

As per the "toxic waters," are you suggesting turning NOLA into a toxic waste dump and and how do you prevent the waters from flowing out?

[Blue3]

And so I urge you all to put aside your political ideology for at least the short term and focus on the fact that you are an American, with a responsibility to help your fellow citizens in time of need, and to do everything in your power to aid ALL government entities, local, state and federal by donating your time, money and energy to help the victims of this disaster. And a small part of that is to shut the  up about politics for at least a few months until everyone is safe, and the dead have been dealt with in a respectful manner as possible.

I wish we had the same attitude during a pandemic.

[WD]

Who keeps bumping all these ancient threads lmao?

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

I am sad I didn't get to see OC posting in 2005.

[Hammy]

Who keeps bumping all these ancient threads lmao?

People who like reminding us how much time has passed on things that feel recent and old we've gotten.

[MABA 2020]

Who keeps bumping all these ancient threads lmao?

I think it's quite interesting, gives you an insight into what people were thinking in 2005 long before I was interested in politics