Many's the time I've tried to get some interest stirred up in what's still not happening as a result of Katrina, and people have moved on, aren't interested for the most part.
This disaster isn't over yet, maybe that's why people aren't responding. Is there anything concrete any of us can do?
As for Obama, here's some info I dredged up:
http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/06/in_chicago_obama_pledges_flood.htmlIn Chicago, Obama pledges flood help
Posted June 11, 2008 12:27 PM
The Swamp
by John McCormick
Appearing in Chicago instead of Iowa this morning, Sen. Barack Obama offered his sympathies for victims of Midwest flooding and pledged to help them rebuild.
"We'll work to ensure that the full resources of the state and federal government are there to help," he said. "And I will do everything in my power to see to it that those resources get to the people who need them as swiftly as possible."
Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, made the remarks at the start of a round-table discussion about credit card debt and predatory lending at the Illinois Institute of Technology.
He had been scheduled to appear in Cedar Rapids today, but stayed away because local news crews there are busy covering the flooding and his campaign did not want to ask government agencies to divert resources for a candidate visit.
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Obama: Free FEMA from Homeland Security
U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, a 2008 Democratic presidential contender, says the main federal agency for responding to disasters should be independent.
In New Orleans Sunday to announce his plans for revitalizing the Gulf Coast, Obama said the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be removed from the Department of Homeland Security. His remarks were broadcast Monday on ABC's Good Morning America.
One of the things that we've proposed is the FEMA director should be independent, should have a six-year term like the FBI director, Obama said, not subject to politics, reporting directly to the president on this reconstruction process.
more...
http://politicom.moldova.org/stiri/eng/69318/*********************************
Obama and Coburn revive effort to stop no-bid FEMA contracts
By Elana Schor
Posted: 09/14/06 12:00 AM
Having scored a high-profile victory on their bill to set up an online federal spending database, the unlikely freshman duo of Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) are hoping their fourth bid to crack down on no-bid contracting at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will finally make it to the president’s desk.
The Senate has passed four versions this year of Obama and Coburn’s language requiring FEMA to accept competitive bids for hurricane reconstruction contracts valued above $500,000, but both chambers have yet to give their plan the force of law. As conferees near agreement on the defense authorization bill amid election-year pressures to appear tough on wasteful spending, the freshmen are pushing for their block on no-bids to emerge in the conference report.
“Everything we have seen about the Katrina rebuilding effort shows this is something that should have been initiated right away,” Coburn spokesman John Hart said. “The closer you get to the election, the more members of Congress will want to demonstrate to the public that they are fiscally responsible.”
Few senators have as much political capital on fiscal responsibility as Coburn, who riled some of his more seasoned colleagues by attempting to force votes on individual earmarks in the spring emergency supplemental. Perhaps unsurprisingly, an Obama and Coburn amendment enforcing competitive bidding at FEMA that passed the Senate unanimously was later left off of the conference report on that emergency supplemental.
more...
http://thehill.com/the-executive/obama-and-coburn-revive-effort-to-stop-no-bid-fema-contracts-2006-09-14.html
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