Homeland Security to Red Cross: Stay Out of New Orleans

Outrageous!

As the National Guard delivered food to the New Orleans convention center yesterday, American Red Cross officials said that federal emergency management authorities would not allow them to do the same.

Other relief agencies say the area is so damaged and dangerous that they doubted they could conduct mass feeding there now.

“The Homeland Security Department has requested and continues to request that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans,” said Renita Hosler, spokeswoman for the Red Cross.

“Right now access is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities. We have been at the table every single day [asking for access]. We cannot get into New Orleans against their orders.”

Calls to the Department of Homeland Security and its subagency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, were not returned yesterday.

Continued…

Kwiatkowski and Giraldi

Saturday on the Weekend Interview Show (6-8pm eastern), I’ll be talking with two ex-employees of the Warfare State. First up will be Karen Kwiatkowski about her observations of the neocons from inside and outside the Pentagon, and in the second hour, Philip Giraldi will return to discuss Sibel Edmonds, the AIPAC spies, the “art students” and corruption in Iraq.

Show’s over
Archives

FEMA Directing Donations to Pat Robertson

From SPLOID:

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is the lead federal agency in the rescue & recovery operation at work in New Orleans and the Mississippi gulf coast.

FEMA has released to the media and on its Web site a list of suggested charities to help the storm’s hundreds of thousands of victims. The Red Cross is first on the list.

The Rev. Pat Robertson’s “Operation Blessing” is next on the list. Robertson founded “Operation Blessing” in 1978.

Robertson’s shell organizations have already collected more than $25 million from the federal government under various “faith based” federal-handout programs. And with millions of distraught citizens looking to FEMA for help in finding reputable organizations to help Katrina survivors, Robertson stands to profit magnificently from the horror that has fallen on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

UPDATE:

FEMA removed “Operation Blessing” from their Web site. They are now referring people to the National Organizations Active in Disaster list.

Katrina As Divine Retribution — ‘Christian Zionist’ Version

The prophets of Katrina-as-divine-retribution are proliferating by the minute. The “we hate Arabs” wing of the blogosphere was quick to publicize this one, a find by the ever-prolific MEMRI — devoted to proving that all things Muslim are the root of all evil — and it was picked up by all the usual suspects. But here’s one they forgot to include: a screed by one Stan Goodenough entitled “Katrina — The Fist of God?” A sample:

“On August 14, citizens in the United States, like people around the world, heard about the issuing of an order for the forced evacuation of Jews from parts of Israel’s biblical land.
For six days they watched as thousands of weeping people were pulled and carried from their homes, forced to leave their gardens, parks, communities, schools, towns and synagogues, everything they had spent decades building; banned from ever returning again. Those scenes were soon followed by pictures of bulldozers and other earth-moving machinery pulverizing the just-vacated homes into heaps of dust.

“While this was taking place, a small tropical depression was forming near the Bahamas in the Atlantic Ocean. Slowly, as the air began to revolve, the nonthreatening weather system began moving in the direction of Florida.

“Yesterday, we in Israel watched as American officials, including President George W. Bush, ordered the mandatory evacuation of New Orleans and its surrounds. That small depression had turned into a frightening fiend. Now we are seeing on our television screens up to a million people being forced to leave their homes. People are weeping on camera, mourning that they are going to lose ‘everything we own; everything we have worked for.’ As today unfolds we are bracing to see wind and water pounding homes, whole communities, into the ground.

“Is this some sort of bizarre coincidence? Not for those who believe in the God of the Bible and the immutability of His Word.

“What America is about to experience is the lifting of God’s hand of protection; the implementation of His judgment on the nation most responsible for endangering the land and people of Israel.

“The Bible talks about Him shaking His fist over bodies of water, and striking them.
While the “disengagement” plan was purportedly the brainchild of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the United States of America has for more than a decade been the chief sponsor and propeller of a diplomatic process that has dangerously weakened Israel in the face of an overwhelming, growing threat to annihilate her.

“In the context of the last 12 years of peace-process history, and not withstanding the desire of many on Israel’s left to go ahead with this process, the Sharon disengagement plan was something that was forced on Israel, primarily by the United States.”

Gee, how could MEMRI, which has offices in Israel — where Goodenough lives with his wife and 5 kids — have missed this one?

Oh, I forgot — they only rank on morons of the Muslim persuasion. Pro-Israel Christians get a free pass.

By the way, there is no record on the internet of the individual referred to in the MEMRI report, Muhammad Yousef Al-Mlaifi. Goodenough, however, has quite an extensive internet trail.

It’s interesting to see how propagandists of the MEMRI/Charles Johnson sort try to generalize about Muslims when citing Senor Al-Mlaifi, but would recoil at the suggestion that Goodenough’s nutball remarks are in any way representative of dispensationalist Christians in America who blindly support Israel. Yet supporters of the latter out-number adherents of the former in the U.S. by how much — a factor of 100, 1,000, or more?

Oh, One More Thing, America…

As you’re watching all this footage of people in Louisiana and Mississippi sleeping in overcrowded gymnasiums, their homes destroyed, loved ones missing, jobs lost… just remember that YOUR money is going to pay Gaza “settlers” $200,000 to $300,000 per family to relocate from their cushy housing projects along the Mediterranean. Think any of your fellow citizens will get a deal anywhere near that sweet?

Yes, This Is Personal

Steven Plaut, an Israeli business professor and David Horowitz hanger-on whose intelligence has been unfavorably compared to that of a retarded lemur, writes:

    [W]e thought we’d bring you the list of countries from around the world (and overseas Red Cross offices) that in the past received natural disaster aid from the US who have volunteered aid and assistance to New Orleans and Gulfport. Here is the list:
    Israel

Only Israel? He provides no links to support this assertion, but assuming that it’s true, SO F*CKING WHAT? I’m supposed to despise tsunami-struck Indonesia (annual per-capita GDP: $3,500, 149th in the world) for not helping out, when my own government sends billions each year to Israel (annual per-capita GDP: $20,800) – money that could have been spent, say, protecting my home in Louisiana? The goddamn IDF should be out on my street picking up debris, and dumbass academics in Haifa should show a little gratitude to U.S. taxpayers and shut up.

UPDATE: As I should have known, Plaut is mangling the truth:
Vancouver Urban Rescue Team Headed to Louisiana

I’m not sure whether Venezuela has ever received assistance with anything other than coups from the U.S., but they offered to help out, too:
Venezuela Offers Fuel, Food to Hurricane-Hit US

Thanks to Tex for the links.

UPDATE II: “Two Dozen Nations Offer Aid“:

    Offers have been received from Russia, Japan, Canada, France, Honduras, Germany, Venezuela, Jamaica, Australia, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Greece, Hungary, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Mexico, China, South Korea, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, NATO and the Organization of American States.

Thanks to alert readers for the links.