Home Depot Founder: Obama's Regulations Are Killing Businesses

[uscitizen]

1. Obama's Illegal Ban on Offshore Oil Exploration
2. Obama's EPA Ban on West Virginia Coal Mining
3. Obama Endorses Offshore Windmill Manufacturer
4. Obama Begs Brazil to Take Oil Industry Jobs Away From America
5. Obama's Falsifies Charges in Attack on the Chamber of Commerce
6. Obama Sues Boeing
7. Obama Pulls Shell's Oil Exploration Permits
8. Encouraged High Gas Prices
8 Ways Obama has Killed Private Sector Jobs in America

Read it. Just to get you started.

But I know there will be soooooooooo many deniers. Fact is Obama and company have hurt business more than helped it. Didn't they say the recession ended something like 2 years ago?

Now that article is pushing it a bit.

Obama did all of that?
Or did mostly govt agencies that existed before Obama do it?

And Obama encouraged high gas prices??

 

[Bfgrn]

1. Obama's Illegal Ban on Offshore Oil Exploration
2. Obama's EPA Ban on West Virginia Coal Mining
3. Obama Endorses Offshore Windmill Manufacturer
4. Obama Begs Brazil to Take Oil Industry Jobs Away From America
5. Obama's Falsifies Charges in Attack on the Chamber of Commerce
6. Obama Sues Boeing
7. Obama Pulls Shell's Oil Exploration Permits
8. Encouraged High Gas Prices
8 Ways Obama has Killed Private Sector Jobs in America

Read it. Just to get you started.

But I know there will be soooooooooo many deniers. Fact is Obama and company have hurt business more than helped it. Didn't they say the recession ended something like 2 years ago?

You know Ollie, business had the most deregulating and environmental permissive group in Washington for more than a decade. The opulent were given massive tax cuts that drained our revenues. They had legislators who let corporations author laws that benefited only the corporations at the expense of the consumer. They rewrote the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts to allow polluters to NEVER have to clean up their human killing messes and allow any dirty energy cartel to dump polluted waste in any stream or waterway by merely applying for a permit from the Corp of Engineers through the mail.

And what did it get us Ollie? An economy destroyed by DEregulations and ZERO job growth.

 

[uscitizen]

Oil was what $25/bbl wen Bush took office and when he left it was?

but Obama encouraged high gas prices?

 

[SFC Ollie]

1. Obama's Illegal Ban on Offshore Oil Exploration
2. Obama's EPA Ban on West Virginia Coal Mining
3. Obama Endorses Offshore Windmill Manufacturer
4. Obama Begs Brazil to Take Oil Industry Jobs Away From America
5. Obama's Falsifies Charges in Attack on the Chamber of Commerce
6. Obama Sues Boeing
7. Obama Pulls Shell's Oil Exploration Permits
8. Encouraged High Gas Prices
8 Ways Obama has Killed Private Sector Jobs in America

Read it. Just to get you started.

But I know there will be soooooooooo many deniers. Fact is Obama and company have hurt business more than helped it. Didn't they say the recession ended something like 2 years ago?

You know Ollie, business had the most deregulating and environmental permissive group in Washington for more than a decade. The opulent were given massive tax cuts that drained our revenues. They had legislators who let corporations author laws that benefited only the corporations at the expense of the consumer. They rewrote the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts to allow polluters to NEVER have to clean up their human killing messes and allow any dirty energy cartel to dump polluted waste in any stream or waterway by merely applying for a permit from the Corp of Engineers through the mail.

And what did it get us Ollie? An economy destroyed by DEregulations and ZERO job growth.

And here I sit just 150 yards away from a river that was dead when I was a kid yet I can fish in it and safely eat the fish today. The recession according to the government today ended about 2 years ago, yet it's not getting better.... So all you Obamabots tell me what has Obama done to make business better? Because all I read is where everything is worse. Remember there was low unemployment right up until 2008. And we all know what happened then. But that had nothing to do with it, nearly 4 years later........

 

[SFC Ollie]

Oil was what $25/bbl wen Bush took office and when he left it was?

but Obama encouraged high gas prices?

One of the Obama Administration’s first acts in February 2009 was to unilaterally cancel 77 leases offered for new energy production on tracts of land in Utah (it later backtracked slightly and allowed 17 of the 77 leases to go forward). That August, the Administration withdrew another 23,757 acres of land leased for energy production, and in March 2010 withdrew 61 leases in Montana and 4,400 acres in West Virginia, putting more energy under lock-and-key.

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar “scrapp[ed] leases for oil-shale development on federal land in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.” The Heritage Foundation says “[t]he amount of oil available through oil shale is staggering,” and that “800 billion barrels of recoverable oil from oil shale in the Green River Formation is three times greater than the proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia.”

Having failed to pass it through the Democrat-run Senate, the Administration is using the EPA to impose its job-crushing national energy tax – the same one President Obama once admitted would cause electricity rates to “necessarily skyrocket.” The Heritage Foundation says “[a]nnual job losses exceed 800,000 for several years” under the EPA’s proposed regulations.

Interior Secretary Salazar imposed new red tape and regulatory hurdles to make leasing land and developing new oil and natural gas more difficult. According to the Houston Chronicle, “Salazar acknowledged that the new rules could add delays to the leasing and drilling process…”

The Obama Administration tried to unilaterally abandon the Yucca Mountain nuclear energy repository – a move that would jeopardize the future of emissions-free nuclear energy.

The EPA moved to block a coal mine in West Virginia – despite the fact that it already had a federal permit – threatening jobs across the region. The Washington Post said it was the first time the EPA had ever vetoed a project that already had a permit.

The Administration unilaterally shut down environmentally friendly offshore energy production “in the eastern Gulf of Mexico” and “off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts,” according to the Washington Post. Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell said the decision will result “in major lost job opportunities, surrendered economic growth, and increased dependence on foreign sources of energy…”
Obama

Of course I'm Sure the Speaker made all this up.........

 

[Cuyo]

I Love it! The answer to everything- "Businessmen are unhappy!! QUICK! Give them whatever they want!"

 

[FuelRod]

Alot better than "I'm from the Government...I'm here to help."

 

[Bfgrn]

1. Obama's Illegal Ban on Offshore Oil Exploration
2. Obama's EPA Ban on West Virginia Coal Mining
3. Obama Endorses Offshore Windmill Manufacturer
4. Obama Begs Brazil to Take Oil Industry Jobs Away From America
5. Obama's Falsifies Charges in Attack on the Chamber of Commerce
6. Obama Sues Boeing
7. Obama Pulls Shell's Oil Exploration Permits
8. Encouraged High Gas Prices
8 Ways Obama has Killed Private Sector Jobs in America

Read it. Just to get you started.

But I know there will be soooooooooo many deniers. Fact is Obama and company have hurt business more than helped it. Didn't they say the recession ended something like 2 years ago?

You know Ollie, business had the most deregulating and environmental permissive group in Washington for more than a decade. The opulent were given massive tax cuts that drained our revenues. They had legislators who let corporations author laws that benefited only the corporations at the expense of the consumer. They rewrote the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts to allow polluters to NEVER have to clean up their human killing messes and allow any dirty energy cartel to dump polluted waste in any stream or waterway by merely applying for a permit from the Corp of Engineers through the mail.

And what did it get us Ollie? An economy destroyed by DEregulations and ZERO job growth.

And here I sit just 150 yards away from a river that was dead when I was a kid yet I can fish in it and safely eat the fish today. The recession according to the government today ended about 2 years ago, yet it's not getting better.... So all you Obamabots tell me what has Obama done to make business better? Because all I read is where everything is worse. Remember there was low unemployment right up until 2008. And we all know what happened then. But that had nothing to do with it, nearly 4 years later........

There were a lot of dead rivers and lakes before Nixon created the EPA. What happened to those environmental conservatives? They are nowhere to be found in Washington, the League of Conservation Voters list of the Dirty Dozen has been OWNED by Republicans for decades.

Obama hasn't done enough to create jobs, but the whole of Washington is embroiled in a fabricated phony debt crisis debate created by the same party that created the debt...

But neither party will be able to revive what was a false economy.

Where’s the Demand?

Very interesting thinking from The Economist‘s Democracy in America (whoever that is) on the (apparent) lack of demand in our current economy:

…people … may not be interested in buying a new car this year, but … they’re very interested in riding the subway … There is demand out there. It just isn’t for individual consumer goods.

This to reiterate the point that “there’s a $2 trillion backlog of necessary infrastructure repairs in America”. That’s just repairs.

There’s demand for those infrastructure goods. And because they’re public goods that private actors can’t capture the profit from, the private sector won’t provide them.

Recovery: What we want to buy now | The Economist.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We’re Spent

THERE is no shortage of explanations for the economy’s maddening inability to leave behind the Great Recession and start adding large numbers of jobs: The deficit is too big. The stimulus was flawed. China is overtaking us. Businesses are overregulated. Wall Street is underregulated.

But the real culprit — or at least the main one — has been hiding in plain sight. We are living through a tremendous bust. It isn’t simply a housing bust. It’s a fizzling of the great consumer bubble that was decades in the making.

The auto industry is on pace to sell 28 percent fewer new vehicles this year than it did 10 years ago — and 10 years ago was 2001, when the country was in recession. Sales of ovens and stoves are on pace to be at their lowest level since 1992. Home sales over the past year have fallen back to their lowest point since the crisis began. And big-ticket items are hardly the only problem.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York recently published a jarring report on what it calls discretionary service spending, a category that excludes housing, food and health care and includes restaurant meals, entertainment, education and even insurance. Going back decades, such spending had never fallen more than 3 percent per capita in a recession. In this slump, it is down almost 7 percent, and still has not really begun to recover.

The past week brought more bad news. Retail sales in June were weaker than expected, and consumer confidence fell, causing economists to downgrade their estimates for economic growth yet again. It’s a familiar routine by now. Forecasters in Washington and on Wall Street keep saying the recovery’s problems are temporary — and then they redefine temporary.

If you’re looking for one overarching explanation for the still-terrible job market, it is this great consumer bust. Business executives are only rational to hold back on hiring if they do not know when their customers will fully return. Consumers, for their part, are coping with a sharp loss of wealth and an uncertain future (and many have discovered that they don’t need to buy a new car or stove every few years). Both consumers and executives are easily frightened by the latest economic problem, be it rising gas prices or the debt-ceiling impasse.

...

THE notion that the United States needs to begin moving away from its consumer economy — toward more of an investment and production economy, with rising exports, expanding factories and more good-paying service jobs — has become so commonplace that it’s practically a cliché. It’s also true. And the consumer bust shows why. The old consumer economy is gone, and it’s not coming back.

Sure, house and car sales will eventually surpass their old highs, as the economy slowly recovers and the population continues expanding. But consumer spending will not soon return to the growth rates of the 1980s and ’90s. They depended on income people didn’t have.

The choice, then, is between starting to make the transition to a different economy and enduring years of stop-and-start economic malaise.

The easy thing now might be to proclaim that debt is evil and ask everyone — consumers, the federal government, state governments — to get thrifty. The pithiest version of that strategy comes from Andrew W. Mellon, the Treasury secretary when the Depression began: “Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate,” Mellon said, according to his boss, President Herbert Hoover. “It will purge the rottenness out of the system.”

History, however, has a different verdict. If governments stop spending at the same time that consumers do, the economy can enter a vicious cycle, as it did in Hoover’s day.

The prospect of that cycle is one reason an impasse on the debt ceiling, and a government default, could do so much damage. Global investors may be the only major constituency that has been feeling sanguine about the American economy. If Washington unnerves them, and sends interest rates rising, the effect really could be calamitous.

But the debt-ceiling debate doesn’t have to be yet another problem for the economy. The right kind of agreement could help soften the consumer bust and also speed the transition to a different kind of economy.

What might that agreement look like? First, it could reduce deficits in future years, to keep investors confident that Washington too could begin living within its means after years of excess.

Second, a deal could avoid the Mellon-like problem of having government cut back at the same time as consumers. The Federal Reserve, the Obama administration and Congress seemed to learn this lesson in 2009, when they aggressively responded to the crisis, only to turn more passive in 2010 and spend much of the year hoping for the best. It didn’t work out. Today, the most obvious options for stimulus are extensions of jobless benefits and of a temporary cut in the Social Security tax.

But they probably shouldn’t be the only options. The biggest flaw with the past stimulus was that it imagined that the old consumer economy might return. Households received large tax rebates, usually with little incentive to spend the money (the cash-for-clunkers program being the exception that proves the rule). People did spend some of these across-the-board rebates, and kept economic growth and unemployment from being even worse, but also saved a sizable portion.

A more promising approach could instead offer a tax cut to businesses — but only to those expanding their payrolls and, in the process, helping to solve the jobs crisis. Along similar lines, a budget deal could increase funding for medical research and clean energy by even more than President Obama has suggested. These are the kinds of investments that have brought huge returns in the past — think of the Internet, a Defense Department creation — and whose price tags are tiny compared to, say, Medicare or the Bush tax cuts.

Politics, of course, makes many of these ideas unlikely to happen anytime soon. Unfortunately, though, these debt-ceiling talks won’t be the final chance for Washington to help the country recover from the great consumer bust. That’s the thing about consumer busts. They last for a very long time.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Republican's solutions...

=

 

[editec]

Specifically what regulation is killing Home Depot?

Odd that they guy didn't give us even one example, isn't it?

 

[Bfgrn]

Alot better than "I'm from the Government...I'm here to help."

There were people in New Orleans in 2005 DYING to hear: I'm from the Government...I'm here to help"

And the first people to utter the words I'm from the Government...I'm here to help" were from the RCMP...

The Royal CANADIAN Mounted Police, from Vancouver British Columbia...the far north west!

 

[chanel]

Specifically what regulation is killing Home Depot?

Odd that they guy didn't give us even one example, isn't it?

He is the co-founder of the Job Creators Alliance. This is from their website:

A vast array of new regulations, from the new health care law, to financial reform legislations, to an activist Environmental Protection Agency, has companies running scared. Some new regulations are already taking a toll, while others will soon be implemented, and the impact is difficult to measure, eroding confidence further. Compounding the problem, out of control lawsuits raise costs for businesses operating in the U.S. The regulatory and legal environment hurts not only companies that already are operating in the U.S., but deters companies overseas from setting up operations and creating jobs in the U.S.

Core Beliefs

They get into a lot of specifics if you are really interested.

 

[Bfgrn]

Specifically what regulation is killing Home Depot?

Odd that they guy didn't give us even one example, isn't it?

He is the co-founder of the Job Creators Alliance. This is from their website:

A vast array of new regulations, from the new health care law, to financial reform legislations, to an activist Environmental Protection Agency, has companies running scared. Some new regulations are already taking a toll, while others will soon be implemented, and the impact is difficult to measure, eroding confidence further. Compounding the problem, out of control lawsuits raise costs for businesses operating in the U.S. The regulatory and legal environment hurts not only companies that already are operating in the U.S., but deters companies overseas from setting up operations and creating jobs in the U.S.

Core Beliefs

They get into a lot of specifics if you are really interested.

What a pile of horseshit. The corporations in America are a bunch of traitors. They have ZERO concern for this country. They outsource jobs to countries that pay PENNIES an hour.

Here is some news for all you right wing morons...America will NEVER be able to compete with 3rd world labor rates. And do you really want America to be a environmental sludge pit like those countries???

We need government to invest in new technologies like clean energy and infrastructure like high speed rail. The Chinese government is making a HUGE investment in green energy...they are kicking our asses.

WAKE UP America...corporations have sold us down the river.

 

[daveman]

I Love it! The answer to everything- "Businessmen are unhappy!! QUICK! Give them whatever they want!"

And your side's answer to everything?

"Raise taxes! Increase spending!"

How's that working out? Not too good, looks like.

 

[daveman]

Alot better than "I'm from the Government...I'm here to help."

There were people in New Orleans in 2005 DYING to hear: I'm from the Government...I'm here to help"

And the first people to utter the words I'm from the Government...I'm here to help" were from the RCMP...

The Royal CANADIAN Mounted Police, from Vancouver British Columbia...the far north west!

It was the failure of (local and state) government that left those people in harm's way in New Orleans.

 

[uscitizen]

1. Obama's Illegal Ban on Offshore Oil Exploration
2. Obama's EPA Ban on West Virginia Coal Mining
3. Obama Endorses Offshore Windmill Manufacturer
4. Obama Begs Brazil to Take Oil Industry Jobs Away From America
5. Obama's Falsifies Charges in Attack on the Chamber of Commerce
6. Obama Sues Boeing
7. Obama Pulls Shell's Oil Exploration Permits
8. Encouraged High Gas Prices
8 Ways Obama has Killed Private Sector Jobs in America

Read it. Just to get you started.

But I know there will be soooooooooo many deniers. Fact is Obama and company have hurt business more than helped it. Didn't they say the recession ended something like 2 years ago?

You know Ollie, business had the most deregulating and environmental permissive group in Washington for more than a decade. The opulent were given massive tax cuts that drained our revenues. They had legislators who let corporations author laws that benefited only the corporations at the expense of the consumer. They rewrote the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts to allow polluters to NEVER have to clean up their human killing messes and allow any dirty energy cartel to dump polluted waste in any stream or waterway by merely applying for a permit from the Corp of Engineers through the mail.

And what did it get us Ollie? An economy destroyed by DEregulations and ZERO job growth.

And here I sit just 150 yards away from a river that was dead when I was a kid yet I can fish in it and safely eat the fish today. The recession according to the government today ended about 2 years ago, yet it's not getting better.... So all you Obamabots tell me what has Obama done to make business better? Because all I read is where everything is worse. Remember there was low unemployment right up until 2008. And we all know what happened then. But that had nothing to do with it, nearly 4 years later........

Ahh but the problem is that we all do not know what happened then. And it did not just happen then it had been building to that for 3 decades.

 

[Bfgrn]

Alot better than "I'm from the Government...I'm here to help."

There were people in New Orleans in 2005 DYING to hear: I'm from the Government...I'm here to help"

And the first people to utter the words I'm from the Government...I'm here to help" were from the RCMP...

The Royal CANADIAN Mounted Police, from Vancouver British Columbia...the far north west!

It was the failure of (local and state) government that left those people in harm's way in New Orleans.

BULLSHIT...Are you capable of spewing anything other than right wing propaganda?

KATRINA TIMELINE


Friday, August 26

GOV. KATHLEEN BLANCO DECLARES STATE OF EMERGENCY IN LOUISIANA [Office of the Governor]

GULF COAST STATES REQUEST TROOP ASSISTANCE FROM PENTAGON: At a 9/1 press conference, Lt. Gen. Russel Honor©, commander, Joint Task Force Katrina, said that the Gulf States began the process of requesting additional forces on Friday, 8/26. [DOD]

Saturday, August 27

GOV. HALEY BARBOUR DECLARES STATE OF EMERGENCY IN MISSISSIPPI [Office of the Governor]

5AM CDT — KATRINA UPGRADED TO CATEGORY 3 HURRICANE [CNN]

GOV. BLANCO ASKS BUSH TO DECLARE FEDERAL STATE OF EMERGENCY IN LOUISIANA: “I have determined that this incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the State and affected local governments, and that supplementary Federal assistance is necessary to save lives, protect property, public health, and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a disaster.” [Office of the Governor]

FEDERAL EMERGENCY DECLARED, DHS AND FEMA GIVEN FULL AUTHORITY TO RESPOND TO KATRINA: “Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency.” [White House]

Sunday, August 28

2AM CDT — KATRINA UPGRADED TO CATEGORY 4 HURRICANE [CNN]

7AM CDT — KATRINA UPGRADED TO CATEGORY 5 HURRICANE [CNN]

MORNING — LOUISIANA NEWSPAPER SIGNALS LEVEES MAY GIVE: “Forecasters Fear Levees Won’t Hold Katrina”: “Forecasters feared Sunday afternoon that storm driven waters will lap over the New Orleans levees when monster Hurricane Katrina pushes past the Crescent City tomorrow.” [Lafayette Daily Advertiser]

nagin.jpg 9:30 AM CDT — MAYOR NAGIN ISSUES FIRST EVER MANDATORY EVACUATION OF NEW ORLEANS: “We’re facing the storm most of us have feared,” said Nagin. “This is going to be an unprecedented event.” [Times-Picayune]

AFTERNOON — BUSH, BROWN, CHERTOFF WARNED OF LEVEE FAILURE BY NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER DIRECTOR: Dr. Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center: “‘We were briefing them way before landfall. … It’s not like this was a surprise. We had in the advisories that the levee could be topped.’” [Times-Picayune; St. Petersburg Times]

4PM CDT — NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE ISSUES SPECIAL HURRICANE WARNING: In the event of a category 4 or 5 hit, “Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks, perhaps longer. … At least one-half of well-constructed homes will have roof and wall failure. All gabled roofs will fail, leaving those homes severely damaged or destroyed. … Power outages will last for weeks. … Water shortages will make human suffering incredible by modern standards.” [National Weather Service]

LATE PM — REPORTS OF WATER TOPPLING OVER LEVEE: “Waves crashed atop the exercise path on the Lake Pontchartrain levee in Kenner early Monday as Katrina churned closer.” [Times-Picayune]

APPROXIMATELY 30,000 EVACUEES GATHER AT SUPERDOME WITH ROUGHLY 36 HOURS WORTH OF FOOD [Times-Picayune]

LOUISIANA NATIONAL GUARD REQUESTS 700 BUSES FROM FEMA FOR EVACUATIONS: FEMA sends only 100 buses. [Boston Globe]

Monday, August 29

7AM CDT — KATRINA MAKES LANDFALL AS A CATEGORY 4 HURRICANE [CNN]

7:30 AM CDT — BUSH ADMINISTRATION NOTIFIED OF THE LEVEE BREACH: The administration finds out that a levee in New Orleans was breached. On this day, 28 “government agencies, from local Louisiana parishes to the White House, [reported that] that New Orleans levees” were breached. [AP]

8AM CDT — MAYOR NAGIN REPORTS THAT WATER IS FLOWING OVER LEVEE: “I’ve gotten reports this morning that there is already water coming over some of the levee systems. In the lower ninth ward, we’ve had one of our pumping stations to stop operating, so we will have significant flooding, it is just a matter of how much.” [NBC's "Today Show"]

11:13 AM CDT – WHITE HOUSE CIRCULATES INTERNAL MEMO ABOUT LEVEE BREACH: “Flooding is significant throughout the region and a levee in New Orleans has reportedly been breached sending 6-8 feet of water throughout the 9th ward area of the city.” [AP]

MORNING — BROWN WARNS BUSH ABOUT THE POTENTIAL DEVASTATION OF KATRINA: In a briefing, Brown warned Bush, “This is, to put it mildly, the big one, I think.” He also voiced concerns that the government may not have the capacity to “respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe” and that the Superdome was ill-equipped to be a refuge of last resort. [AP]

MORNING — MAYFIELD WARNS BUSH ABOUT THE TOPPING OF THE LEVEES: In the same briefing, Max Mayfield, National Hurricane Center Director, warns, “This is a category 5 hurricane, very similar to Hurricane Andrew in the maximum intensity, but there’s a big big difference. This hurricane is much larger than Andrew ever was. I also want to make absolutely clear to everyone that the greatest potential for large loss of lives is still in the coastal areas from the storm surge. … I don’t think anyone can tell you with any confidence right now whether the levees will be topped or not, but there’s obviously a very very grave concern.” [AP]

MORNING — BUSH CALLS SECRETARY CHERTOFF TO DISCUSS IMMIGRATION: “I spoke to Mike Chertoff today — he’s the head of the Department of Homeland Security. I knew people would want me to discuss this issue [immigration], so we got us an airplane on — a telephone on Air Force One, so I called him. I said, are you working with the governor? He said, you bet we are.” [White House]

MORNING — BUSH SHARES BIRTHDAY CAKE PHOTO-OP WITH SEN. JOHN MCCAIN [White House]

11AM CDT — MICHAEL BROWN FINALLY REQUESTS THAT DHS DISPATCH 1,000 EMPLOYEES TO REGION, GIVES THEM TWO DAYS TO ARRIVE: “Brown’s memo to Chertoff described Katrina as ‘this near catastrophic event’ but otherwise lacked any urgent language. The memo politely ended, ‘Thank you for your consideration in helping us to meet our responsibilities.’” [AP]

LATE MORNING — LEVEE BREACHED: “A large section of the vital 17th Street Canal levee, where it connects to the brand new ‘hurricane proof’ Old Hammond Highway bridge, gave way late Monday morning in Bucktown after Katrina’s fiercest winds were well north.” [Times-Picayune]

11AM CDT — BUSH VISITS ARIZONA RESORT TO PROMOTE MEDICARE DRUG BENEFIT: “This new bill I signed says, if you’re a senior and you like the way things are today, you’re in good shape, don’t change. But, by the way, there’s a lot of different options for you. And we’re here to talk about what that means to our seniors.” [White House]

4:30PM CDT — BUSH TRAVELS TO CALIFORNIA SENIOR CENTER TO DISCUSS MEDICARE DRUG BENEFIT: “We’ve got some folks up here who are concerned about their Social Security or Medicare. Joan Geist is with us. … I could tell — she was looking at me when I first walked in the room to meet her, she was wondering whether or not old George W. is going to take away her Social Security check.” [White House]

8PM CDT — RUMSFELD ATTENDS SAN DIEGO PADRES BASEBALL GAME: Rumsfeld “joined Padres President John Moores in the owner’s box…at Petco Park.” [Editor & Publisher]

8PM CDT — GOV. BLANCO AGAIN REQUESTS ASSISTANCE FROM BUSH: “Mr. President, we need your help. We need everything you’ve got.” [Newsweek]

LATE PM — BUSH GOES TO BED WITHOUT ACTING ON BLANCO’S REQUESTS [Newsweek]

Tuesday, August 30

11AM CDT — BUSH SPEAKS ON IRAQ AT NAVAL BASE CORONADO [White House]

MIDDAY — CHERTOFF CLAIMS HE FINALLY BECOMES AWARE THAT LEVEE HAS FAILED: “It was on Tuesday that the levee–may have been overnight Monday to Tuesday–that the levee started to break. And it was midday Tuesday that I became aware of the fact that there was no possibility of plugging the gap and that essentially the lake was going to start to drain into the city.” But later reports note that the Bush administration learned of the levee breach on Aug. 29. [Meet the Press, 9/4/05; AP]

PENTAGON CLAIMS THERE ARE ENOUGH NATIONAL GUARD TROOPS IN REGION: “Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said the states have adequate National Guard units to handle the hurricane needs.” [WWL-TV]

MASS LOOTING REPORTED, SECURITY SHORTAGE CITED: “The looting is out of control. The French Quarter has been attacked,” Councilwoman Jackie Clarkson said. “We’re using exhausted, scarce police to control looting when they should be used for search and rescue while we still have people on rooftops.” [AP]

U.S.S. BATAAN SITS OFF SHORE, VIRTUALLY UNUSED: “The USS Bataan, a 844-foot ship designed to dispatch Marines in amphibious assaults, has helicopters, doctors, hospital beds, food and water. It also can make its own water, up to 100,000 gallons a day. And it just happened to be in the Gulf of Mexico when Katrina came roaring ashore. The Bataan rode out the storm and then followed it toward shore, awaiting relief orders. Helicopter pilots flying from its deck were some of the first to begin plucking stranded New Orleans residents. But now the Bataan’s hospital facilities, including six operating rooms and beds for 600 patients, are empty.” [Chicago Tribune]

2PM CDT — PRESIDENT BUSH PLAYS GUITAR WITH COUNTRY SINGER MARK WILLIS [AP]

BUSH RETURNS TO CRAWFORD FOR FINAL NIGHT OF VACATION [AP]

Wednesday, August 31

1:45AM CDT — FEMA REQUESTS AMBULANCES THAT DO NOT EXIST: “Almost 18 hours later, [FEMA] canceled the request for the ambulances because it turned out, as one FEMA employee put it, ‘the DOT doesn’t do ambulances.’” [Wall Street Journal]

11:20 AM CDT — FEMA STAFF WARNED BROWN THAT PEOPLE WERE DYING AT THE SUPERDOME: Three hours later, Brown’s press secretary wrote to colleagues complaining that Brown needed more time scheduled to eat at a restaurant: “He needs much more that (sic) 20 or 30 minutes. We now have traffic to encounter to go to and from a location of his choise (sic), followed by wait service from the restaurant staff, eating, etc. Thank you.” [AP]

NATIONAL GUARD TROOPS ARRIVE IN LOUSIANA, MISSISSIPPI, ALABAMA, AND FLORIDA: Troops arrive two days after they are requested. [Boston Globe]

 

[boedicca]

The HDF is spot on.

Government policies which are designed to increase the size of government crush the private sector.

Period.

End of story.

 

[Neubarth]

Home Depot is the place to 'hire' cheap labor, so contractrors and slum lords as well as some homeowners don't have to pay into Social Security, Medicare, Medicade, UE Insursnce, etc etc.. Maybe the founder ought to police his own parking lot before he offers critiscism of anyone else.

If you're opposed to illegal immigrants you ought to boycott Home Depot.

That's just plain stupid....Home Depot is not encouraging the illegals that hang around their stores looking for work....i know of some stores that have fenced off their lots in order to keep them away...but the illegals still hang around the streets outside the fences...

maybe if the Federal Government did ITS job there wouldn't be this problem...

The best solution would be to annex Mexico and Central America.

 

[SFC Ollie]

Specifically what regulation is killing Home Depot?

Odd that they guy didn't give us even one example, isn't it?

He is the co-founder of the Job Creators Alliance. This is from their website:

A vast array of new regulations, from the new health care law, to financial reform legislations, to an activist Environmental Protection Agency, has companies running scared. Some new regulations are already taking a toll, while others will soon be implemented, and the impact is difficult to measure, eroding confidence further. Compounding the problem, out of control lawsuits raise costs for businesses operating in the U.S. The regulatory and legal environment hurts not only companies that already are operating in the U.S., but deters companies overseas from setting up operations and creating jobs in the U.S.

Core Beliefs

They get into a lot of specifics if you are really interested.

Without reading further I will bet that there will be denials and excuses and that certain people will not go read the "specifics" that they have been asking for.....

 

[Cecilie1200]

Alot better than "I'm from the Government...I'm here to help."

There were people in New Orleans in 2005 DYING to hear: I'm from the Government...I'm here to help"

And the first people to utter the words I'm from the Government...I'm here to help" were from the RCMP...

The Royal CANADIAN Mounted Police, from Vancouver British Columbia...the far north west!

It was the failure of (local and state) government that left those people in harm's way in New Orleans.

Not to mention the fact that they sat around WAITING for the government to "help", instead of getting off their dead asses and helping themselves.