View Full Version : And who said this wasn't political?
Secretariat
09-10-2005, 02:55 PM
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050910/pl_nm/contracts_dc
The greed is beyond belief. I understand Bush is even overriding law to prevent workers from getting the current prevailing wage in LA, MS, so that Halliburton and Bechtel can line their pockets more. First, the workers are thrown out of work, and then their wages are sliced for potential new jobs to get back on their feet, while more no bid contracts go to his cronies who can pile on the profits. How many times can you kick a dog when it's down? And yet some of you guys just keep defending him. Boy, he's a true Christian in action.
PaceAdvantage
09-10-2005, 03:31 PM
Name some firms with the qualifications to obtain these contracts that don't have ties to Bush or Cheney.
Name some firms with the qualifications to obtain these contracts that don't have ties to Bush or Cheney.
So am I to understand that all the large contracting firms have Bush/Cheney in their pocket? Or is it the other way around Bush/Cheney have their hands in the firms pockets ?
PaceAdvantage
09-10-2005, 06:38 PM
Answer the question.
Name some firms with the qualifications to obtain these contracts that don't have ties to Bush or Cheney.
These Folks are Project managers. Bechtel and Halliburton. They administer jobs. Becthel ran the 15 Billion Dollar Big Dig in Boston and never bought a shovel. They don't build things or fix things. They handle all the Bidding, procurement, regulatory and construction adminstration.
Halliburton probably won't have 50 people on the ground in LA or Miss. Thier subsidary... KBR. Kellog , Browne and Root will have 5000.. It's thier design and engineering division. They'll figure out how to rebuild the City....and the Levee's. They pass the plan to Becthel, who will then put together a whole shit load of $500 million dollar contracts to dozens of large and medium size construction firms you never heard of.
. I understand Bush is even overriding law to prevent workers from getting the current prevailing wage in LA, MS, . .
This is true...and the Dem's tried but couldnt get prevailing wage language into the first 50 bil. It better be in the next. Prevailing wage in this area of the country is $11.50 per hour. (23.90 in NYC and Boston).
Pay me now ..pay me later. You gotta give people a days wage. Then maybe two very important things might have been lessened in this tragedy.
#1. More people would have had cars...or gas money to get out of town....
#2. The reason so many people were unable to evacuate was they had improper health care. That lead to a state of physical incarceration to their home. When people can care for themselves properly.. .. through adequate health care... They are less likely to be handcuffed to their condition.
The capitalists thought they were getting away on the cheap... paying everybody 6 bucks an hour with no health-care. Look where it got us! We need to look out for the poor.... because they can be a very expensive "accounts payable" when the real bill comes due.
Anyone who gets up at 5 in the AM, goes out and breaks a sweat,... is worthy of 11 an hour in my book.
Secretariat
09-10-2005, 08:18 PM
Anyone who gets up at 5 in the AM, goes out and breaks a sweat,... is worthy of 11 an hour in my book.
Especially when you're homeless.
The question that arises, then, is just what contribution can these people make that is WORTH more than $6 an hour and health care to boot?
If you give everyone a living wage and health care for doing little, how do you compensate me, who works my buttt off? You gonna up me to $125K a year?
If you ain't upping my pay, I'm going to slack off and do the minimum to get my piece of the pie. What is my incentive?
PaceAdvantage
09-11-2005, 03:33 AM
Shhhh Tom....we don't want to burden ourselves with petty little details like this....it screws up the whole game plan!
Secretariat
09-11-2005, 05:59 AM
The question that arises, then, is just what contribution can these people make that is WORTH more than $6 an hour and health care to boot?
If you give everyone a living wage and health care for doing little, how do you compensate me, who works my buttt off? You gonna up me to $125K a year?
If you ain't upping my pay, I'm going to slack off and do the minimum to get my piece of the pie. What is my incentive?
Let me address a few of your assertions here. (a) What do you mean "doing little"? Do you asert that rebuilding the infrastruture is "doing little", and are you denigrating these people's attempt to work before they've even had a chance to start? All they're asking is the "prevailing wage" for God's sake. They're not trying to make 125K a year, just pull out of a desperate situation. Jesus.
You don't get it. This isn't about them being in competittion for "your" wages. It is paying them the current "prevailing wage" to DO ACTUAL WORK to help rebuild, and SO they don't have to go on welfare, and SO they can possibly pay for their apartment which they're living in with multiple familes, RATHER than truly become a giant class of people in need of government assistance. It is about decency. Why should they be paid LESS than the current prevailing wage? Man, sometimes you're spot on, but you're on la-la land on this one.
tonto1944
09-11-2005, 08:07 AM
I would much rather read the words of John L Perry than listen to the likes of the extreme Left Wing race baiters or Radical Islam's American "useful idiots", any day!
Once again Perry exposes the truth as very few can and shows how the culture of Liberalism is destroying this country. Some of the pictures he paints are very scary indeed.
Len Waxman
cid:88B9398D-616E-4200-8687-B76FEA413DC7@local
John L Perry
Rescuing the Rest of Us
John L. Perry
Thursday, Sept. 8, 2005
As the carcass of what once was New Orleans decomposes in September's swelter, above that stench emerges the nightmare: Can the rest of America survive?
That is where the larger Hurricane Katrina story looms – out here across the rest of the country. The Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama coastal tragedies reveal but a fleeting glimpse of horrors yet to come but are entirely within the realm of possibility, giving a new, more-frightening meaning to the term War on Terror.
Horrendous as they were, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were vertical disasters. Katrina's murderous swath was horizontal, more like the footprint of a nuclear attack.
Before Their Very Eyes
The whole world watched as one of America's great metropolitan areas, home of more than half a million souls, was eliminated as a functioning entity.
What an adrenalin rush the desolation of New Orleans must have given Osama bin Laden and the boys. At no cost to them, this was just what they've always wanted – a major American city brought to its knees, its population dead or terrorized, every family in the land staggered.
What a cornucopia of options have been handed to al Qaeda – where and how worst to inflict their own next strike upon the Great Satan:
Perhaps a chemical or biological dose right atop the already-poisoned urban swamp?
Maybe a bomb here, another bomb there, along the levees, undoing all that the Army Corps of Engineers is doing to re-harness Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River?
How about a 'dirty nuke' triggered in Denver or in Orlando or in St. Louis or in Atlanta? Or in all at the same time?
Would it be even more staggering to touch off a series of improvised explosive devices, like a string of firecrackers, in unprotected shopping malls, grammar schools, hospitals, movie theaters, churches, football stadiums, hotels and jammed freeways, coast-to-coast, day after day?
If Katrina could throw America into this much disruption, think what greater chaos could be created. Don't think bin Laden hasn't been thinking.
It must be of particular comfort to him that he is receiving such gracious help from the lunatic left here at home. Cheap-shot politicians are wasting no time crying crocodile tears for the TV cameras. Tin-pot second-guessers in Congress are taking turns blaming, even cursing, the president of the United States. Their hatred of George W. Bush far exceeds any compassion they might summon for the afflicted.
The Worst Is Coming
Katrina succeeded in flushing out of New Orleans a subculture of hundreds of thousands of individuals incapable of sustaining themselves. They were victims long before Katrina blew into town – victims of a government-funded, collectivized culture of incompetence, entitlement and lifelong dependency that dates back at least to the failed Great Society of Lyndon B. Johnson.
Now they are out of the only slums they've ever known, a Diaspora airlifted, bused, pickup-trucked and Amtraked across the continent, into city after city, community after community, neighborhood after neighborhood.
There are among this throng many fine, decent, hard-working, deserving, law-abiding, God-fearing people, but there are many who are not.
By and large the latter have no employable skills, even should jobs pop up and await them. They were on the dole in New Orleans. They will be on the dole wherever they land.
America's Authentic Homeless
Systematically non-educated in government kid-sitter warrens called schools, a shocking number suffer piteously from dietary obesity and other crippling inflictions. They have lost what abodes they had. With no money in their pockets, they have no jobs and few prospects of permanent employment.
They will be the natural prey for the politically unscrupulous, who will not shrink from registering them in their new zip codes while at the same time voting them absentee at their old, water-logged polling places.
Yet, they must be fed, washed, clothed, treated, housed and, of course, policed. There is very little they can, or will, do for themselves.
Fret over them as their new, welcoming neighbors will do, counsel at them as the well-intended will insist, they are unlikely to become much other than what they are, what they have been socially mis-engineered to be.
Thank You, Karl Marx
For they are the latest generation of generations who owe their existence to a doomed leftist philosophy of government – still championed by one of this country's two major political parties – and subsidized by taxation on those Americans who have not yet been quite taxed dry.
Still, they must be taken in, cared for and, absolutely yes, loved.
Who's to do it? The folks in whose laps they have landed for heaven-knows how long?
Sad to say, it won't take many moons for the current commendable wave of sympathy and generosity to subside. As that ebbs, in will seep, then rush with a roar, a counter-tide of irritation, resentment and anger followed by fury. The dragon's seed of unprecedented chaos, anarchy and outright rebellion will have been sown.
Egging it all on will be the charlatans of racial hatred, both white and black. They will think nothing of inciting subcultures in other cities to protest, then destroy in empathetic futility. After all, if the self-elected champions of the afflicted can feel free to slander and curse the president, himself, why haven't they a similar right to play with fire where they are?
Personal Bodyguards for All?
There are not enough national guards and regular military forces to protect every big city, every town, every crossroads, every neighborhood, every front porch, every individual.
When the metastasized masses' needs and wants turn to entitlements and demands – from food, to shoes, to smokes, to medicines, to drink, to sex, to dope – that cannot be met any other way, they will be taken from those who have, or who appear to have.
When all this comes to pass, who will rescue the rest of America?
There is only one answer, the answer that has been there long before Katrina. The answer is simply: The rest of us will have to, for who else will be left who can do it?
But can the rest of America survive?
The answer to that question is what it has always been in America, from 1776 onward, and will be unto the unforeseeable future: absolutely yes.
Will We?
The rest of us can rescue America because this is America, and we are Americans, and there is nothing we cannot do as Americans.
In times past when this nation faced its worst crises, the leadership required to take America through to survival and beyond has always risen up.
If it isn't too presumptuous to say so, that is what this president, George W. Bush, is telling us. And that is the leadership he is providing.
The ultimate question, the one that no president can answer for the rest of America, is whether we will respond to that leadership.
John L. Perry, a prize-winning newspaper editor and writer who served on White House staffs of two presidents, is a regular columnist for NewsMax.com
Tonto,
Perhaps you should get with boxcar and study editing for efficiency. :D
Basially, we have sent Al Qeda the message - we are not prepared.
After the dust settles, we need to realy get into this whole mess. WHO appointed Brown as head of FEMA? Based on what - ability or payback?
Was Brown recalled to DC becasue they needed to get someone in there who could get the job done, or because of the approval ratings were going south faster that a flock of geese on New Year's Eve.
At every level, this country was embarrased by our so called leaders. Every time one stooge failed, the next stooge stepped up to the plate and got fanned.
The question that arises, then, is just what contribution can these people make that is WORTH more than $6 an hour and health care to boot?
If you give everyone a living wage and health care for doing little, how do you compensate me, who works my buttt off? You gonna up me to $125K a year?
If you ain't upping my pay, I'm going to slack off and do the minimum to get my piece of the pie. What is my incentive?
I understand your point about incentive but, some people will work their butt off just because that is their nature. Others will slack off as much as possible, it is human nature and money will not change it.
I had a fellow working for me years back that was by all accounts a good worker. He knew all the jobs, could and did fill in for anybody willingly and always ended the day with a good days production. Only problem was, he only showed up four days a week. I had a session with him giving him praise for his efforts and output and then I questioned him about why he only works four days a week. His response: "Because I can't make it on three."
Don't know what your current pay is but, if the minimum wage goes up, your pay will rise accordingly. You can bet on it.
JustRalph
09-11-2005, 01:14 PM
Tonto,
Perhaps you should get with boxcar and study editing for efficiency. :D
hey Stinky, nice one.......:lol: :lol:
Shhhh Tom....we don't want to burden ourselves with petty little details like this....it screws up the whole game plan!
What details?
You two muffs are funny. A jack hammer wieghs 80 pounds. 80! If I put either one of you on a Jack hammer for 10 hours in 105 degrees... at the end of the day you'd both take a PAY CUT for your old job back.
America is one big huge fat gift for all of us!
Like Clint Eastwood said in Unforgiven.
"Deserves got nuthin to do with it"
;)
SilverSow
09-11-2005, 02:45 PM
What details?
You two muffs are funny. A jack hammer wieghs 80 pounds. 80! If I put either one of you on a Jack hammer for 10 hours in 105 degrees... at the end of the day you'd both take a PAY CUT for your old job back.
America is one big huge fat gift for all of us!
Like Clint Eastwood said in Unforgiven.
"Deserves got nuthin to do with it"
;)
I've done the jackhammer bit... the 10 hours wasn't a problem... neither was the 105 degrees... or the 80 lbs... but shaking all night, every night, after doing it all day, every day, is NO FREAKING FUN!
Dave
Secretariat
09-11-2005, 03:02 PM
Tonto and JR,
This is actually what you really believe? That Kark Marx and Lyndon Johnson are responsible for the situation in New Orleans? Phewwwww...
Thank you posting that. It reminds me why I'm a Democrat.
Tonto and JR,
This is actually what you really believe? That Kark Marx and Lyndon Johnson are responsible for the situation in New Orleans? Phewwwww...
Thank you posting that. It reminds me why I'm a Democrat.
I'm almost speechless at the way people keep indicting these poor people in Lousinanna and Missisippi.
They are welfare types... culture of dependency....on and on. Almost like they deserved what happened to them.
Just remember one thing Tonto...and all others who want to smack down the victims.
While your home bashing them... thier Sons are dying in your name in Iraq.
Suff, you are the one makeing thier poverty in issue.
And as for the jackhammer, how does that answer have anything to do with my comment about fairness? You just wanna give money away to people who don't earn it?
JustRalph
09-11-2005, 04:13 PM
They are welfare types... culture of dependency....on and on. Almost like they deserved what happened to them.
I don't think they deserved what happen to them..........but I might say that they have some culpability on the levee breaks etc. They didn't push their local leaders to fix the problem. The problem has been around for 40 years. There are other parts of the country that have fixed their own flood problems........N.O. didn't do a damn thing about it for 40 years.........maybe deserving isn't the right word...........but there is damn sure culpability........
lsbets
09-11-2005, 04:21 PM
I didn't see anyone blaming the folks in MS. I did see people saying that there was a cultural problem in NO that led to the total breakdown of society once the police stopped enforcing the law. What is that problem? I don't know, but that is a discussion that needs to be had once the dust settles. The shared characteristic of poverty with MS obviously wasn't the cause, because MS didn't face the same criminal problems that NO faced.
I don't think they deserved what happen to them..........but I might say that they have some culpability on the levee breaks etc. They didn't push their local leaders to fix the problem. The problem has been around for 40 years. There are other parts of the country that have fixed their own flood problems........N.O. didn't do a damn thing about it for 40 years.........maybe deserving isn't the right word...........but there is damn sure culpability........
Its huge in scope... but when you look at a Map it is such tiny slice of America that it puts the sheer size of our country in perspective.
Infrastructure is not a quality of life issue. Infrastructure is a Gift to our grandchildren and their children. Things Like the Panama Canal, Brooklyn Bridge, Golden Gate Bridge and Boston's Big Dig are not and were not built with current quality of life in mind. (primarily)
They've spent 100's of millions simply maintaining the protection they had. To say that 10 years ago they could have built for this is misleading.
Panama Canal took 20 years. 9 by the french, 11 by the Americans. The Brooklyn Bridge took 15 years start to finish.
To say they simply could have built new levees... while sounding true and simple , it is not.
Additionally, this particular class of people have no power to effect the change they needed.
But realistically... to say in Hindsight they should have started a 30 Billion dollar project 13 years ago and they'd all be tucked in bed tonight is unfair to the economic and political reality.
I haven't been into the blame game. My main thoughts are... Lets get it cleaned up. It was a very tragic natural disaster. Lets regroup.. clean it up... Build it back and learn.
Keep in mind though when a Gargantuan construction project lands on your desk... it is not for us. Its for our grand-kids. Its expensive..but we need to invest in our Country for their secure future.
Politics are different there than here. I see that Clearly now. Citizen groups are involved at all levels here. Without question the lynch pin failure here was local Authorities in all three States.
I always say.. You gotta get it up front. When all these Gambling Giants like Harrahs and MGM came to the South as Carpetbaggers they should have held them up. Robbed them. Went right into their pockets and took it. The Gambling firms were giving the States 500 million dollars a month. That was the States cut! What do you think the Companies were making?
When they all showed up in Miss and Louisiana and wanted to put in Casino's .... The residents should have been right there saying... For every buck you make.....we get 35 cents. Instead they were sold out by thier own politicians.
I didn't see anyone blaming the folks in MS. I did see people saying that there was a cultural problem in NO that led to the total breakdown of society once the police stopped enforcing the law. What is that problem? I don't know, but that is a discussion that needs to be had once the dust settles. The shared characteristic of poverty with MS obviously wasn't the cause, because MS didn't face the same criminal problems that NO faced.
Urban vs Suburban.
Most American Cities are in Crisis.
Its is not class, color or ideology.
Urban America is a tough tough place to be right now.
lsbets
09-11-2005, 05:58 PM
I would agree with that 100% Suff. I don't know the demographics for MS, but on both race and poverty, I believe they are pretty close. The divider is not only Urban vs. Suburban, but a lot of the areas hardest hit in MS are rural. The saying is you cross the border into MS and you step back in time 100 years. Although I've never been there except driving though, from the people I know from MS that is very true on many, many levels - some good and some very bad.
I think you would agree that at some point we need to figure out the why. Not simplistic answers, but a real understanding of the why so the issues can be addressed.
schweitz
09-11-2005, 06:02 PM
My main thoughts are... Lets get it cleaned up. It was a very tragic natural disaster. Lets regroup.. clean it up... Build it back and learn.
I hope we learned that if we rebuild we better get the levees to cat 5 status asap.
doophus
09-11-2005, 09:51 PM
I hope we learned that if we rebuild we better get the levees to cat 5 status asap.And take-on the perpetual task of maintaining the levees at Cat 5 status. The entire area is constantly sinking, including all levees.
My 40+ yrs of La. residency indicates that the $$$'s will be properly spent until some yokel determines that they should be spent on some (thing/one) else.
Someone suggested that La. should be divided between Texas & Mississippi, but that won't work. That would only cause a war between those states. Who really wants La? :D Maybe N.J., Mass. or Vermont?
lsbets
09-11-2005, 10:06 PM
This is interesting. The Shaw Group got some of the larger contracts out of this deal. CNN listed the Shaw Group right after Halliburton as the companies with Bush connections. Guess what?
Shaw Group is a LA based company. The company is run by Jim Bernhard. Jim is the chairman of the LA Democratic Party. Another exec at Shaw was Blanco's campaign manager. The company was criticized during the campaign for letting Blanco fly on a company owned jet.
Shaw also has a lot of contracts in Iraq, because they are one of a handful of firms who can do that work. Why doesn't the media bring up Shaw Group everytime they bring up Halliburton? Well, they did this time, but they assumed Shaw Group was tight with Bush. You would think the media could do their homework.
JustMissed
09-11-2005, 11:43 PM
This is interesting. The Shaw Group got some of the larger contracts out of this deal. CNN listed the Shaw Group right after Halliburton as the companies with Bush connections. Guess what?
Shaw Group is a LA based company. The company is run by Jim Bernhard. Jim is the chairman of the LA Democratic Party. Another exec at Shaw was Blanco's campaign manager. The company was criticized during the campaign for letting Blanco fly on a company owned jet.
Shaw also has a lot of contracts in Iraq, because they are one of a handful of firms who can do that work. Why doesn't the media bring up Shaw Group everytime they bring up Halliburton? Well, they did this time, but they assumed Shaw Group was tight with Bush. You would think the media could do their homework.
After Mayor Hagin and Bush sided-up to put the blame on Blanco, the damage control to Bush became too tiresome and the Houston boys decided it would be much easier to throw some of "our money" at Shaw/Blanco than to fight her.
Several things have developed that have helped the Bush camp get back to business as usual:
1. Relief effort appears to be going well.
2. Bush fired someone(Brown)-not exactly fired but same effect
3. Gen. Honore gets lots of face time on TV and fullfills country's need for John Wayne type hero.
4. Coast Guard Admiral comes on board in charge of FEMA and fullfills country's need for Churchill type hero.
5. Death toll, thank goodness, will be way lower than predicted
6. Offshore oil rigs are or will be soon back to full capacity
7. Gas prices are or will be coming back to about $2.50 a gallon and we think we are getting a great deal except we are still taking it in the ass big time.
8. Bush/Cheney/Rove have billions of dollars of our money to pass around for buying friends and silencing enemies
9. Soon the image of that poor Black man holding up his dying infant and shouting for baby formula, water and food will go away
10. As soon as the oil starts pumping and the ports start shipping-those poor folks in NO will slip back into that dark abyss to be diminished by the thoughts of an Oyster Po'Boy and an ice cold Hurricane
11. The people of Mississippi will, as usual, come in last place as far as rebuilding and recovery goes. Through true grit, determination and sheer willpower, they will someday rebuild and be thankful for the hand-outs given them by the Mob ruled gaming industry.(It is strongly rumored that if you build Casinos on the water and not on land, God cannot see that you are sinning).
Anyway, the next time the Aliens come to Earth to check us out when they see how badly we have screwed things up, I hope they see my neighbor walking her dog each day wearing a plastic shopping bag on her hand like a catchers' mitt in order to catch the dog poop before it hits the ground.
Maybe, just maybe, they will think the dogs are in charge of things. :D
Good Night,
JM
Secretariat
09-12-2005, 01:47 AM
This is interesting. The Shaw Group got some of the larger contracts out of this deal. CNN listed the Shaw Group right after Halliburton as the companies with Bush connections. Guess what?
Shaw Group is a LA based company. The company is run by Jim Bernhard. Jim is the chairman of the LA Democratic Party. Another exec at Shaw was Blanco's campaign manager. The company was criticized during the campaign for letting Blanco fly on a company owned jet.
Shaw also has a lot of contracts in Iraq, because they are one of a handful of firms who can do that work. Why doesn't the media bring up Shaw Group everytime they bring up Halliburton? Well, they did this time, but they assumed Shaw Group was tight with Bush. You would think the media could do their homework.
Yes, Jim Bernhard is the chairman of the LA Democratic Party, but he was an political independent until a year ago. In fact his Shaw Group contributed $100,000 to Bush's second inauguration.
The interesting thins is that it was only on 8/24/05 that a lobby registration from the Allbaugh Company indicating it would lobby for the Shaw Group Environmental ws filed. Joe Allbaugh is basically the lobbyist for all of the companies that got the Katrina contracts - including Shaw Group. Joe Allbaugh, Bush's 2000 Campaign Manager, was appointed by Bush to head FEMA and Allbaugh is the guy who recommended the hiring of Brown, his former college roommate, to replace him.
Allbaugh's bio prior to being appointed to head FEMA was purely political.
"Prior to his appointment, Mr. Allbaugh served as Chief of Staff to then-Governor George W. Bush.
Mr. Allbaugh served as the National Campaign Manager for Bush-Cheney 2000 with responsibility and oversight for all activities related to the Bush election campaign. He had previously served as Campaign Manager for President Bush's first run for Texas governor."
You don't find it interesting that ALL the firms getting the no bid contracts for Katrina were being repesented by now-lobbyist, former Bush campaign manager, Joe. Allbaugh? As John Stoessel would say "Give me a break."
PaceAdvantage
09-12-2005, 03:53 AM
What details?
You two muffs are funny.
Welcome back Suff.
boxcar
09-12-2005, 12:28 PM
What details?
You two muffs are funny. A jack hammer wieghs 80 pounds. 80! If I put either one of you on a Jack hammer for 10 hours in 105 degrees... at the end of the day you'd both take a PAY CUT for your old job back.
America is one big huge fat gift for all of us!
Like Clint Eastwood said in Unforgiven.
"Deserves got nuthin to do with it"
;)
Really? And just who gifted America to "all of us", Suff?
Boxcar
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