So, what kind of progress has New Orleans made? Apparently, the people of New Orleans don’t think much has been made.

While some residents have rebuilt neighborhoods, long-term infrastructure projects have been slower to materialize. New Orleans’ population has returned to 67% of its pre-Katrina level of 300,000, but thousands remain scattered throughout the region.

As Bush read his statement, an estimated 1,000 people marched in protest from the Lower 9th Ward to Congo Square on the outskirts of the French Quarter. Marchers, some carrying signs denouncing Bush’s policies, were led by dancers and two brass bands.

Another rally, held in front of the convention center, mixed political speeches with gospel singers.

“This day is part celebration, part memorial, part indictment,” said Ernest Stephens, 62, attending the convention center rally with his wife, Jacqueline, 65. “With all the resources, all the brainpower in this country, we’re still not back in our homes. It’s crushing.”

It appears that two years after Katrina, the people in New Orleans are still busy blaming the federal government for all of their problems, both real and imagined, rather than taking the billions in resources and putting it into the rebuilding effort.

“We’re on the front pages today, maybe tomorrow,” said [Joe] Givens, a civic activist who works with clergy in the city’s poor neighborhoods to resurrect communities. “But then people will move on to something else.”

What do these people expect, eternal attention from the entire nation and its government? Yes, what happened was a tragedy. Yes, we want to help you. Yes, we care. However, we’ve given you the resources to rebuild, we’ve taken care of your refugees, and we’ve assisted you with stabilizing the City. Now, its your turn to step up to the plate and get busy helping yourselves. Instead, New Orleans is whining about what they think others should be doing for them:

“A feel-good visit is great,” New Orleans Councilwoman Shelley Midura said. “But he should be here a lot more than what he is. And not just a meeting at a restaurant or a photo opportunity at a school, but doing the hard work with people on the front lines.”

Excuse me, Councilwoman, but if your people had been doing the hard work on the front lines, you’d be a lot further along than you are. The problem is, because of all the whining emanating from New Orleans, much of the good will which was bestowed upon it after Katrina has been squandered. Immediately after Katrina struck, I was more than happy to donate money and materials to the relief effort. Then the residents of New Orleans re-elected Ray “School Bus” Nagin, who had promised that New Orleans was going to be a”Chocolate City” and I no longer felt New Orleans deserved my help.

In the aftermath of the disaster, it became obvious that Nagin had done little to prepare his city for a disaster that they knew was coming for over a week. On Thursday before Katrina struck, he refused to issue a mandatory evacuation order for residents of the city.

On August 27, Katrina was upgraded to a Category 3 Hurricane and Nagin issued a voluntary evacuation request. Nagin was hesitant to make the order mandatory because of the city’s liability in closing hotels and other businesses. On August 28, Katrina was classified as a Category 4 Hurricane and Nagin made the evacuation mandatory.

Instead of being concerned with the residents’ well-being, Nagin was concerned about the city’s liability from closing businesses. This caused him to delay making the evacuation order mandatory until the day before Katrina struck. By then, it was way too late for most of the stranded residents to leave. Remember this picture?

These school buses sat unused in a parking lot, and eventually were flooded, because Nagin wanted other states to send Greyhound buses because he didn’t feel school buses were good enough. Meanwhile, residents of New Orleans were killed by the flood because noone came to evacuate them.

So, with Nagin’s incompetence as mayor all but confirmed, it seemed to me that at their first chance the people of New Orleans would install new leadership in the Mayor’s office. Instead, after a campaign where Nagin was literally busing in people to vote for him, the people of New Orleans re-elected Nagin. This action convinced me that the people of New Orleans were not deserving of either my monetary help or support. In fact, I’ve come to realize that rebuilding a city whose future destruction is all but guaranteed by its location is a bad idea and a waste of taxpayer money.

As far as I’m concerned, the Nation has done all it should do for the City of New Orleans. Until such time as the people of New Orleans can show that they are serious about returning competent leadership to the city government, they should be left on their own. Sending resources to a city government who is more concerned about having a black city rather than rebuilding the city itself is a waste money.

I learned a long time ago that South Texans can not drive in icy weather. For some reason, South Texans with SUV’s think that because they have four-wheel drive they can drive over iced bridges at normal speeds without worry. In fact, what normally happens to these brain surgeons is that they hit a patch of black-ice and end up wrecked on the side of the bridge, or worse, crashing into some other motorist. I saw this occur several times this morning.

So, as you can imagine, I am one of only three people at work this morning, in a building usually filled with over 150 people. Nice and quiet, with no calls. I may be able to get some work done!

WASHINGTON (AP) – Everyone has known New Orleans is a sinking city. Now new research suggests parts of the city are sinking even faster than many scientists imagined – more than an inch a year.

That may explain some of the levee failures during Hurricane Katrina and it raises more worries about the future.

The research, reported in the journal Nature, is based on new satellite radar data for the three years before Katrina struck in 2005. The data show that some areas are sinking four or five times faster than the rest of the city. And that, experts say, can be deadly.

“My concern is the very low-lying areas,” said lead author Tim Dixon, a University of Miami geophysicist. “I think those areas are death traps. I don’t think those areas should be rebuilt.”

Source

Coupled with the re-election of Ray “School Bus” Nagin as Mayor, these are the definitive reasons not to rebuild New Orleans with taxpayer money. Why should the taxpayers provide upwards of one or two billion dollars to rebuild a city which is just going to be laid waste the next time a Katrina-type hurricane hits it?

New Orleans, on the land it is currently situated, is almost certainly going to be visited by hurricanes and tropical storms for the foreseeable future. Between the fact that it is below sea level to begin with and the fact that parts of it are sinking more than 1 inch per year, what sense is there in rebuilding a large city in this location? I feel bad for the residents who have lived there for most of their lives and who would surely miss it, but that isn’t any reason to waste billions of dollars in taxpayer funds on rebuilding something that will surely be destroyed.

Now, if a method were to be developed that would permanently raise the land to above sea level and support a levee system, I could support using taxpayer funds to rebuild the city. Also, if the city were to relocate to more stable ground, I could support using taxpayer money to rebuild the city. However, short of these two options, it’s just a waste of resources.

There it was, right there on CNN the afternoon of December 6. Ishmael Mohammed, an attorney for the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund, quoted a young woman named Denise, talking about her experience in the New Orleans Superdome: “The National Guard did not serve or protect. They were constantly threatening us and herding us by machine guns like cows. I saw a teenage boy beaten up by a National Guard officer in front of a crowd of thousands of people.” Denise confirmed accounts of “white and Asian tourists… rushed quietly out one side of the barricade that held thousands of exhausted, financially underprivileged black families with babies.” Tammy, a thirtysomething African-American woman who was attempting to escape the city by car, said police stopped, arrested and jailed her and her two daughters for weeks. “Lie down on the ground, you black monkey bitch,” she claims one of them yelled. Patricia Thompson, a 53-year-old New Orleans evacuee, testified that soldiers aimed their machine gun target lasers at her granddaughter’s forehead, and that New Orleans cops routinely spat racist insults at storm victims. Others spoke of looting and gratuitous murder by police gone berserk.

Well, hang on a minute here. If there’s one thing that you can count on from people who feel that some authority figure has injured them or mistreated them is that a lawsuit is going to be filed. The people Rall discusses here, if there stories are actually true, all have good causes of action against the City of New Orleans and/or the Federal Government. Why haven’t they filed these suits? Why aren’t they cashing in on what would seem to be a lottery-type situation? I’ll tell you why: because there isn’t any evidence to back up these stories. In a time where people in government routinely loose their jobs for the slightest act of political correctness, why isn’t “Tammy” yelling and screaming about how the police called her a “black monkey bitch”? If true, she could and should have that officer hung from the highest flag pole.

Certain editors are brazenly partisan, politically and otherwise, making choices that reflect their publisher’s or their own personal tastes. The New York Times, for instance, doesn’t practice “advocacy journalism.” That policy prompted Times editors, worried about affecting the outcome of the election, to kill a story revealing that the mysterious lump in George W. Bush’s jacket was indeed a transmitter that he had used to cheat during the 2004 presidential debate.

Now I want you to make sure you caught what Rall is saying in the above quote: Rall is saying that The New York Times, the one newspaper on the planet who can be counted on to criticize anything and everything the President says or does, of covering up for him during the 2004 Presidential Election. This alone should be enough for any sane person to realize that this column is nothing more that a wheel-barrow full of excrement. It should be enough to demonstrate the complete lack of credibility Rall and others of his ilk have in the real world. Most of all, it should tell you that he can not be taken seriously about anything.

Katrina turned New Orleans into an auto junkyard and the flooded cars are still everywhere, mementos of the storm and of the city’s continuing failure to clean itself up.

Almost seven months after Hurricane Katrina, the Nagin administration still dickers over details of a contract that would gradually rid the cityscape of these vehicular eyesores — at a cost of $23 million over another six months.

Which makes it of more than passing interest to discover that the largest car crusher east of the Rockies, K&L Auto Crushers of Tyler, Texas, offered in October to do the job in 15 weeks and actually pay the city for the privilege of hauling the junk away. How much? How about $100 per flooded car. With an estimated 50,000 vehicles on the street at that time, the city would have netted $5 million, rather than shelling out four times that sum, as it plans to do now.

That’s right, folks. Rather than pocket $5 million for allowing a private firm come in and remove all of the junked cars choking the streets of New Orleans in 15 weeks, Mayor Ray Nagin is instead forging ahead with a contract that will pay a company $23 million to do the same thing in six months. Total cost to the flood-ravaged citizens of New Orleans: $28 million.
This is the same mayor who has toured the country trying to get blacks to return to New Orleans so that they can have a “chocolate” city, and begging people for money to help rebuild. The more I learn about this guy, the more I realize why more people who left after the hurricane hit will never return.

I don’t think another nickel should be spent by the Federal government on the rebuilding of New Orleans until they can prove that they’ve got their financial house in order. Personally, if the mayor of New Orleans can afford to give away $28 million for a job that would have netted him $5 million, I don’t think that they need any more money.

“Surely God is mad at America. He sent us hurricane after hurricane after hurricane, and it’s destroyed and put stress on this country,” Nagin, who is black, said as he and other city leaders marked Martin Luther King Day.

“Surely he doesn’t approve of us being in Iraq under false pretenses. But surely he is upset at black America also. We’re not taking care of ourselves.”

Apparently, according to this guy, God is a Democrat. Not only that, but God is punishing America for something, as evidenced by the recent spat of hurricanes. However, the stupidity doesn’t stop there:

Nagin also promised that New Orleans will be a “chocolate” city again. Many of the city’s black neighborhoods were heavily damaged by Katrina.

“It’s time for us to come together. It’s time for us to rebuild New Orleans _ the one that should be a chocolate New Orleans,” the mayor said. “This city will be a majority African American city. It’s the way God wants it to be. You can’t have New Orleans no other way. It wouldn’t be New Orleans.”

Now, try to imagine this: The Mayor of a storm-ravaged town in a coastal city is speaking, and he says the following: “This city will be a majority white city again, because that’s the way God wants it!” There is no word for the size of the deluge of criticism and commentary that the press would rain down on this guy, complete with accusations of racism. However, because in this case it was a black man who said it, his racism gets a pass and barely a mention in the paper.

It’s time to remember that when Martin Luther King said that he had a dream, his dream was that all races would treat each other equally and fairly, not just black people. Racism is racism, whether it is espoused by a black man, a white man, or anyone else.

As usual, La Shawn Barber has some excellent ideas on this matter.

Go kick the tires and take a look.

Bodies of people killed by Hurricane Katrina went uncollected for more than a week in the New Orleans area as the federal government waited for Louisiana’s governor to decide what to do with them, according to memos released Thursday by a Republican-led House committee.

The 38 pages of e-mail between FEMA representatives and Pentagon officials contradict the contention by Louisiana’s Democratic Gov. Kathleen Blanco, two weeks after Katrina hit on Aug. 29, that the federal government was moving too slowly to recover the bodies.

Why isn’t anyone asking Blanco why it took her over a week to decide where to put the bodies? Oh, wait, they did, and she pointed fingers at FEMA, as is her usual response:

Blanco spokesman Bob Mann said Thursday it was FEMA’s responsibility for removing bodies, which was delayed because the agency failed to sign a contract with Houston-based Kenyon International Emergency Services to do so.

Blanco “was almost literally jumping up and down and screaming about FEMA’s failure to execute the contract with Kenyon,” Mann said. “There were few things during that period that were more important and more urgent to the governor than doing something about this body removal. It was important to her that these people be treated with dignity, that these bodies not be allowed to lay out in the street.”

“Yes, there was paralysis, but it was on the part of FEMA,” Mann said.

Kenyon International’s president Robert Jensen said in a telephone interview Thursday night that it was his company’s decision not to sign a contract with FEMA. He declined to give reasons, other than to say that money was not the issue. Kenyon later accepted a contract with the state

Now, in support of it’s position the investigative committee has provided many emails between FEMA officials and the Pentagon which detail their frustrations with dealing with the Governor. What evidence that Blanco was “jumping up and down screaming” regarding the contract with Kenyon did the Governor’s office provide? None, just the statement by her spokesman.

It seems to me that ever since Katrina hit, the Governor and the Mayor of New Orleans have done nothing but whine about FEMA and the federal government being too slow to do things, when in reality it would have been much faster and more efficient if they had taken care of it. It’s as if they stood back with their hands in the air yelling, “Why aren’t you doing anything?” and “Why are you so slow?”

Officials have said they were more focused on rescuing Katrina’s survivors immediately after the storm hit than in picking up bodies.

“For that first week following the storm … all efforts were focused almost exclusively on rescuing the victims who were still alive,” said Bob Johannesen, a spokesman for Louisiana’s Department of Health and Hospitals.

Davis spokesman David Marin said the issue “offers further evidence that state and local officials were utterly overwhelmed.”

Marin nailed it right on the head: The state and local governments where overwhelmed by this disaster. Instead of admitting this and then working to fix the problems, Blanco and Mayor Ray Nagin started lashing out and blaming everything that went wrong on the federal government and FEMA. Sounds to me like they were too busy trying to cover their asses to bother with doing the work that needed to be done to give aid to their constituents.

There will be some real interesting political races come the next election season in Louisiana.

It seems that all of those poor evacuees from Hurricane Katrina had an urgent need for your tax dollars:

Hurricane Katrina evacuees hastily handed $2,000 in federal relief money last month have been living it up on Cape Cod, blowing cash on booze and strippers, a Herald investigation has found.

Herald reporters witnessed blatant public drinking at a Falmouth strip mall by Katrina victims living at taxpayer expense at Camp Edwards on Otis Air Force Base. And strippers at Zachary’s nightclub in Mashpee, a few miles from the Bourne base, report giving lap dances to several evacuees.

“They were tipping me $5 a pop,” said a Zachary’s dancer named Angel. “I told them I felt bad taking their money. But I still took it.”

It’s a good thing that they got those $2,000 debit cards out to those poor, starving evacuees. I mean, it is just inhuman to expect a man to go without Ripple or a lap dance for more than a couple of days. Can you say, “I was taken to the cleaners”?

One elderly man poured a bottle of Ruble vodka into a water bottle and spent the afternoon sipping the liquor outside the Wal-Mart. Two other men were seen buying 32-ounce Coors Light cans at George’s Liquors and drinking at the bus stop.

Last Tuesday, one 52-year-old evacuee, who told a reporter he was originally from Cuba, stood in the rain outside Wal-Mart for several hours drinking gin and orange juice from a thermos. The same day, a female evacuee bought ice at a supermarket and roughly $30 worth of hard liquor before being driven in a car back to Camp Edwards. Evacuees are banned from bringing booze onto the base.

So these guys are using my money to hang out at the Wal-Mart and knock back hard liquor and beer, and I’m supposed to feel sorry for them? After reading the reports from the media, I kind of expected these folks to be in the shelters, trying to put together the pieces of their shattered lives and figure out a way to start over. Instead, they are hanging out in front of the local mall and getting tanked. Beautiful.

The Camp Edwards residents have been treated to Red Sox and New Orleans Saints games, Boston Duck Tours, a chowder fest, concerts, and free cell phone and Internet service, as well as cookouts sponsored by Romney and U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.).

Okay, the part about Ted Kennedy makes sense. After all, he practically invented getting tanked. However, look at all of the perks these people got. These people have received a ton of hospitality, care, and concern from people all over the country and in return, they get plastered. You want to know how this is possible?

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has issued more than $1.5 billion to 607,000 Katrina victims in the form of individual cash handouts of $2,000. There are no restrictions on how the money can be spent, FEMA officials said.

No restrictions? Why not? If you can limit food stamp recipients to buying only food items and no alcohol, why can’t FEMA do that with these debit cards? These debit cards are not supposed to be free cash, they are supposed to be used to feed and shelter victims of the hurricane until such time as they get back on their feet. Instead, the “victims” are binging on booze and falling off of their feet.

What a mess.

WASHINGTON — Two Democrats who might seek the White House again in 2008 criticized President Bush for his response to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, assailing the suspension of wage laws while urging a concerted effort to aid the poor.

Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts and former Sen. John Edwards spoke separately Monday on the government’s handling of the catastrophe and on the broader issue of poverty in the United States.

In a blistering critique, Kerry said former FEMA Director Michael Brown was to Hurricane Katrina “what Paul Bremer is to peace in Iraq; what George Tenet is to slam dunk intelligence … what George Bush is to ‘Mission Accomplished’ and ‘Wanted Dead or Alive.’ … The bottom line is simple: The ‘we’ll do whatever it takes’ administration doesn’t have what it takes to get the job done.”

Once again, instead of offering ideas or suggestions about how to improve the situation in Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi, Democrats can only spew rhetoric. It looks as if the Democrats are no longer just wishing for defeat in Iraq; now they’re also hoping for a catastrophe in the Gulf Region which was hit by Hurricane Katrina. It’s nothing but the politics for these people, regardless of the suffering.

“If the Great Depression brought forth Hoovervilles, these trailer towns may someday be known as Bushvilles,” Edwards told an audience at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank in Washington.

In the Democrats’ minds, somehow Bush is at fault for the poverty in New Orleans, a city which has a long history of poverty over many Presidential Administrations. None of the leftists seem to connect the mayor of New Orleans or the Governor of Louisiana to the economic condition of the areas they govern. Apparently the Federal Government is responsible for running New Orleans, according to liberal thinking, and the Mayor and Governor are just figureheads with no responsibility for their policies. I wonder if the Democrats have bothered to tell Ray Nagin and Kathleen Blanco that they are not really in charge.