The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns

yes, but there's nothing like a fine Rhine whine to make your dinner complete.

believe it or not, I just got a German, pitching his German site, telling me about how the Germans are all upset that Bush would make the planet warmer or something. I couldn't tell, it was all in German.

Everyone wants to blame Bush for EVERYTHING... WTF? He's being blamed for a hurricane now (in a round-about sorta way)???! Gimme a break!

I actually feel kinda bad for the guy because he's so hated! I'd have a few beers with him!

I do disagree with many things Bush has done
I do not disagree with Michael Moore or the Dixie Chicks on being ashamed of the man.
But to blame a natural disaster on him is certifiably insane.
New Orleans had plenty of warning to leave ahead of time, the fact that many didn't doesn't make Bush the scapegoat.
New Orleans was bound to be doomed eventually
being a city below sea level in a heavy hurricane zone. Its too bad the city planners of the day cannot be held responsible, because they are more to blame than either Katrina or Bush.
I got a hit from here, so I've returned the favour.

But it is the perfect time to get on us about global warming. It's all Bush's fault! The hurricanes, the Arctic melting, the ozone hole from Hell, etc.

Hey, I may not like the President, but if someone else thinks they can do a stellar job after a natural disaster like Katrina and NOT get lambasted in the media, be my guest.

Okay, I don’t know if Sam wrote this or not. If so, sorry Sam I was not out to offend you in any way. I’m just bloody pissed right now.

I want to make it clear I’m a Bush hater. The man is an idiot. He’s STUPID. Note the word stupid is in all caps. No this natural disaster is not his fault. It is an act of nature or and act of God that man has no control over. This storm and the power behind it could be a part of a natural cycle; then again, in this day and age it could be global warming. That said let’s get to the reason why 48% of this great nation is pissed with Bush and hates his GUTS. The Army Corp of Engineers was begging the Bush camp for money to shore up the levies. The levies have been in bad shape for years. But the Republican Party like to play things on the CHEAP, and let’s not forget the Republicans control both houses of congress. It would have cost between seven to 14 million to fix the levies and Bush cut the funding. Now, it’s going to cost the nation 10 billion, and that’s billion with a B. That’s what we 48% who live in the blue are pissed about. This could have been avoided if the funds to fix the levies had been invested into them in place of being diverted to Iraq...

As to why the people living there didn’t leave, they couldn’t. Not everybody has a car, nor did they have the money to buy a bus ticket out. They held their position thinking the levies would hold and they could ride out the storm. The other thing that’s pissing people off is that 1/3 of the National Guard of Louisiana are over in Iraq being killed for nothing. The Republican Party is going into a melt down and the Christian Right can’t accept the fact they have been wrong for the past five years.

Sorry Scorpius but you're WAY off base with your comments. Hate Bush all you want, but at least TRY to get your facts straight.

Only 12.8 percent of the military is deployed in Iraq. Far short of your 1/3rd reference.

The levee that failed was the top of the levee technology pile. Remember, NOTHING we can design can withstand a direct CAT 5 hit. The levees were designed to defend against a level 3 hurricane, over level three and the city must be evacced. Nagin left the city transit busses in their barn and the parish school busses in the lot. Even with 10 times the current funding level for the SELA district NO DIFFERENT OUTCOME WOULD HAVE BEEN ACHIEVED.

Again NAGIN could have gotten the people out, or at least some of them. BUT HE DIDN'T. He had the busses, and the authority, but he instead told people to go to the Superdome as a "shelter of last resort". When people arrived, guess what, no one was there, not a single NO official. The National Gaurd in NO, took it upon themselves ILLEGALLY to man the superdome because no one else would do it. The NG troops should have been out draggin people to high ground, while the police and muni officials managed the superdome.

EVERY SINGLE POINT OF THE NEW ORLEANS EVACUATION AND DISASTER PLANS WERE IGNORED BY NAGIN.

NAGIN is the first on the blame list, Blanco comes second.

Before you Blame Bush, remember, that it was BUSH THAT URGED NAGIN TO ORDER AN EVACUATION. BUSH CALLED NAGIN PERSONALLY AND ASKED HIM TO SERIOUSLY CONSIDER ORDERING A MANDATORY EVACTUATION.

Blanco resisted requesting FEMA and DHS for help, she dropped the ball and stalled FEMA and DHS both through her incompetence. If FEMA would have rolled in there without legal authority, you'd be bitching that Bush stepped on Blanco's toes. Barber and Riley both asked for assistance when Bush declared the disaster areas BEFORE THE STORM, Blanco waited until WELL AFTER the storm to allow FEMA and DHS to take over. Remember, we have a concept called "posse commitatas", or might you be suggesting we throw that out the window whenever the Feds fell like it???

Get your facts straight, then you can go back to screaming Bushhitler all you want.

--Jason

Jason,

I don't think it could be said any better. Good job!

That wasn't Samantha, that was me - MrBig, aka the quieter part of Samantha Burns.

I was clarifying that Sam is not a Jesus freak, which your article sounded like it was saying but also that she has no problems with those that are "Jesus Freaks". i.e. it's not a reason to dislike someone just because they believe and express a strong belief in God. You could have also been saying Bush was a "Jesus Freak" but it wasn't clear so I wanted to clear that up.

Ok, so Sam and I are going to disagree on this point, and that's alright - doesn't mean you aren't welcome just because we think differently.

Couple of other points. Sam is not a republican, by nature she can't be one - i.e. she is Canadian. There are those who are not republican, not "Jesus Freaks" and not even American like us who support the war (despite your media portraying the rest of the world against the US). Yes, Canadians get Amercian news too.

I'm a Canadian, and while I support the war effort, you should see the featured post about governmental mooching to see my attitudes towards most politicians and government itself.

So you have your reasons to be against the war, we have our reasons to be for it. I don't mind that some people are against the war, but the "moonbats" (those who say things like War Never Solves Anything) - I don't think very highly of their absolutely irresponsible logic. If that were true, we'd all be speaking German right about now. (Not implying you share that view point). We think differently, and you (or anyone) is more than welcome to continue to counter your own logical points to whatever is posted here.

BTW, Sam doesn't talk much about the war as you can see, so many others like http://www.rightwingnews.com/ do so much better job at explaining pro-war positions. Sam views her website as a get-away from the everyday.

Well sir, I’m a bit confused. Canada doesn’t have a dog in this fight. I was just reacting to a right wing viewpoint which is wrong 95% of the time. Some times they are right and I can agree with their point of view, but 95% of the time they are wrong. It’s my nation that’s going down the tubes because of that creep in the White House. And I can’t see why anyone in Canada would care about this misguided adventure Bush has gotten us into in Iraq, or how he and his camp are running my country in to the crapper. This could have a ripple effect that could reach into Canada, just like the depression of the 1930’s here in the U.S. that in time reach into Europe and brought Hitler to power, then again I don’t know. It may not affect you at all.

Peace, my brothers.
Scorpius--

There you go again Scorpius, Europe was in the throes of a depression LONG BEFORE the stock market crash of 1929, which brought the depression to us. Saying that the US depression carried over to Europe is plainly wrong, they were well into a depression already.

You claim that the "right" is wrong 95% of the time, but here on this one comment page, it's been the "left" as evidenced by you, that's been wrong.

Get over it, the left has failed to provide anything of inherent value to the American political landscape since Kennedy.

I'm also wondering if you consider giving African-Americans, Women and 18 year olds the franchise was part of the "95% wrong" you claim for the right, remember, all three of those are Republican accomplishments.

--Jason

Okay, let's run with that. Tell me please, what's so great about Bush?

Greatness or incompetance will be decided by history, not me, and not you. It's obvious you hate him. I'm thinking that's probably more of an institutional hatred of republicans, coupled with sour grapes.

And also I'm not responding that "Bush is great" I've been here pointing out your blatant mistakes and disregard for the truth. You don't seem to want to back up what you say or defend it when I point out the fallacies, so I'll just have to consider that you are simply a leftist that likes to make bombastic outlandish statements in the hopes that you'll sway opinion by repeating the same untruths and distortions or out of context characterizations over and over.

You're blaming Bush, when the true responsibilty of the failed New Orleans (my hometown by the way) situation rested on the local officials, the Mayor and the Governor. I'm sure there will be plenty of investigation after the fact that will point out that the Mayor didn't follow the established procedure for getting people out of New Orleans, and show how the Governor failed to request and actually refused federal help in the 48 hours after the levee collapse.

Gen. Honore has been operating in the full light of the media in this entire event. His movements are well tracked and will show that he was actiing EXACTLY as he was supposed to do under the agreement between the state and the federal government with regard to response. The local officials collapsed totally, and within 24 hrs of the levee breach (which I note again was a fully constructed levee, the best one the SELA planned) the Mayor of N.O. was screaming that he needed buses and the feds failed to send them. People on the left are reticent to acknoledge that the Mayor had over 1000 buses which he failed to use and were subsequently destroyed. Had the mayor followed his instructions, there would have been no PERCEIVED delay.

The mayor of New Orleans killed that city. The city of my birth and home for the first 21 years of my life. He killed it by flagrantly disregarding the plans to evacuate New Orleans, he killed it by abandoning thousands upon thousands of citizens when he sent them to locked shelters with no city officials to open and manage them, he killed the city when he gave the police chief Edwin Compass conflicting orders on how to handle the Convention Center and looting and he killed it when he himself left the city in his brand new Learjet.

If you want to blame someone, blame Clarence Ray Nagin Jr., the mayor of New Orleans. If you have blame left over, you can give it to Catherine Blanco, the governor of the state, if you're still itching to blame someone, Brown, the head of FEMA can probably use some, but get real and understand that the presidency is not a micro-management job and at the very least give Bush the credit (as Nagin, and Blanco do) for getting an evacuation even started, even if the mayor did seriously drop the ball resulting in thousands of unnecessary deaths(some of them my friends and relatives). If there was any evidence that Bush was in some way responsible for these deaths by failing to do his part under law and in accordance with the Hurricane Disaster Plans, I'd be blaming him, but the evidence simply isn't there, all the factual evidence points squarely to the mayor, then to the governor and finally peters out with the head of FEMA and to an even lesser extent, the head of DHS. Ironically, the true facts point to the fact that Bush did more than he was supposed to, skirted the law in a number of ways to get help there faster and even began the entire process of evacuation personally by browbeating those with authority to call for it. If one wants to be intellectually honest (which you either are not or have been operating under a set of false information) one has to give Bush credit and not blame. But. . .

If you want someone to declare someone GREAT, look elsewhere, I believe great men and women are few and far between (remember, if everyone is special, no one is). History may decide that Bush is great for the many things he has accomplished, History may decide otherwise, but that's for history to decide, not armchair pundits like you and me.

--Jason

Due to the fact, the Christian Right is going into a melt down phase they are being thrown off message. Slowly, the chatter about this all being Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco’s fault is not sticking. When questioned, they keep side stepping the issue of the levees. Granted I do not live in Louisiana, I can only go on what I read, hear and see from the media. Now, if I were only hearing this stuff from one lone source like Fox News, I would question the info. However, when you start to hear information about the 17th Street Canal levee from more than one source, there’s a good chance there is something to it. I keep reading and hearing “The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built and maintained the 17th Street Canal levee;� not the city of New Orleans. The Administration (Currently Republican) controls the Corps. In addition, to make matters worse they come under the control of the agencies of the Department of Homeland Security. This happened last year when Congress made those sweeping changes to the way the agencies are organized.

Bush could have gone to Congress and said he needed funding to fix the levees. If the Republican control Congress had, just like they did for Iraq, approve the funding to improve the levees several years back, this all wouldn’t have happen once Bush gave the order. The Bush Administration, from the time they have been in control has time after time ignored the reports from The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. If for some reason if there are any Republicans who think I’m full of bull droppings, they should go and look it up for themselves. I’d like to see what they find, and I’m not talking about what they find on Right Wing websites, Right Wing talk radio or GOP Blogs. Then it will be interesting if they can form some original thoughts on the issue in place of spewing out the same old prewritten right wing junk over, and over again.

The Republican Party dropped the ball; they can’t ignore the fact the Republican leadership has failed this country.

Welcome to George W. Bush ‘s version of America. It really sucks.
Scorpius—

President Bush had his press secretary provide us with a new phrase, “Blame Game.�
It was introduced at a press conference where it was repeated eight times.
In order to ensure that ‘No Child Is Left Behind’ (unlike the thousands of children left behind to drown in the Gulf Coast) here is a word game you can play with your children so that they can know and use the phrase.
First of all the purpose of the exercise is to ensure that children and you, as an adult, are able to repeat the phrase when it is needed.
As part of our Homeland Defense it should be repeated eight times whenever anyone says something like this, ‘Undersecretary of FEMA Michael D. Brown is apparently an incompetent whose inadequate preparations led to the needless death of thousands of Americans, the destruction of several towns and the loss of one American city.’
As soon as you hear something like that you should say, ‘Blame Game, Blame Game, Blame Game, Blame Game, Blame Game, Blame Game, Blame Game, Blame Game.’
Children should look at the ground and shuffle their feet.
Responsible bureaucrats would also like us all to practice this other word game.
When anyone says, ‘Michael D. Brown should be fired.’, you respond, ‘Why would I do that for?’
For full effect repeat, ‘Blame Game, Blame Game, Blame Game, Blame Game, Blame Game, Blame Game, Blame Game, Blame Game.’
Hopefully these instructions will be available soon on FEMA for kids :
http://www.fema.gov/kids/index.htm