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CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Some survivors of Hurricane Katrina say they aren't getting enough attention from the Bush administration, so they're turning to Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez for help. Ishmael Muhammad of the New Orleans Survivor Council has visited Venezuela three times to seek funding and forge ties. He says the group hopes to raise $45,000 for a center to house 50 people as they rebuild their homes.

NEW ORLEANS - National Guard troops stand ready, batteries and water bottles are selling briskly, and one small-town mayor has spent a sleepless night worrying. The New Orleans area is skittishly watching as a storm marches across the Caribbean on the eve of Hurricane Katrina's third anniversary.

Nagin Returns To New Orleans Due To GustavWritten by: BayouBuzz Staff NEW ORLEANS, LA (August 27, 2008) - New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin, who was a key speaker this morning for the Oregon, Washington and Minnesota delegations at the Democratic National Convention, has decided to return to New Orleans immediately to closely monitor Hurricane Gustav. Gustav, which has hit the southwest coast of Haiti and is threatening Cuba, appears to be on a likely course toward the U.S. Gulf region. The area, which will mark its third anniversary of the devastation of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita on August 29,...

NEW ORLEANS -- Louisiana officials and residents cast a wary eye on the Caribbean Sea as Tropical Storm Gustav strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane. Track The Hurricane At 11 a.m., the center of Gustav was located near latitude 17.9 north, longitude 72.4 west, or about 50 miles south of Port au Prince, Haiti. Gustav is moving toward the northwest at 9 mph. A gradual turn to the west-northwest and a decrease in forward speed is expected later on Tuesday, forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami said. Maximum sustained winds have increased to near 90 mph, with higher...

On one of his frequent visits to New Orleans, federal recovery coordinator Douglas O'Dell delivered a bruising critique of the Nagin administration on Thursday, saying "there is growing frustration" in Washington with the speed, efficiency and competence of City Hall's efforts to manage the local recovery after Hurricane Katrina. O'Dell, who consults with dozens of federal, state and local agencies and troubleshoots regulatory logjams, said Mayor Ray Nagin's recovery director, Ed Blakely, often does not return his calls and seems to be operating under the premise -- erroneous, O'Dell thinks -- that a new presidential administration next year "will reload...

Tiffany Woods should one day look at the autopsy pictures of her starved baby, a Caddo District Court judge said this afternoon as she found Woods and her boyfriend guilty of letting their baby starve to death. The child's mother and father, who were Hurricane Katrina evacuees, had money for beer and cigarettes but not money to properly feed their child, the judge added. Judge Jeanette Garrett, who decided the case in lieu of a jury, found Woods and Emmanuel Scott guilty of second-degree murder in the death of their 5-month-old baby. Woods, 28, and Scott, 21, face mandatory life...

Today President Bush traveled to Orlando, Florida to speak to the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention. Unlike the whiney messiah who spoke to the VFW yesterday, President Bush didn’t hesitate to thank those have served and defended America in time of war. (Transcript) I know you share with me a deep love for America and an awesome pride in those who defend her. When I meet with our troops, they always inspire me with their sense of duty and honor.They are America's finest citizens. (Applause.) The President also spoke about the situation in Georgia, reinforcing the United States’ solidarity...

Is Rhonda Tavey a Good Samaritan or a criminal? The Houston woman is now charged with kidnapping and is allegedly on the run from police after disappearing two weeks ago with five children she took in following Hurricane Katrina three years ago.

(BILOXI, Miss.) Aug. 4 - Mississippi Congressman Gene Taylor told NBC 15 News he doesn't have time to look into our investigation into whether or not tax dollars are being wasted on Hurricane Katrina victims unwilling to look for work. (video at link)

Obama cynically criticize White Christian groups helping in the Katrina rebuild. Obama implies white Christian aren't good enough to help and says there is a difference between Christians based on their skin color.

Ashland, Ky. (AP) -- Anti-tobacco lawyer Richard "Dickie" Scruggs has reported to a federal prison in eastern Kentucky. . . .for conspiring to bribe a judge with $50,000.

There are many good, valid reasons to expand off-shore drilling in the US. Many have been and are being discussed here and in the media. But one reason seems to have been overlooked, one that really shows just how empty and hypocritical Liberal rhetoric is and I wish to point that out here. In the aftermath of Katrina, we were told that the Bush Administration's slow response was many things. Incompetent. Heartless. Racist. Cruel. Whatever. Which brings to mind a question, if not responding quickly enough is all those things, what can be said of a deliberate refusal to help?...

Today’s dangerous housing problems in the Southwestern part of Houston have been greatly exacerbated by the actions of Houston city government in the settlement of large numbers of Katrina evacuees in the area. But the problem does not lie solely in past actions. The City of Houston, in violation of provisions of the 1968 Fair Housing Act, continues to act to concentrate the predominately low-income, African-American evacuees in these deteriorated, high crime, segregated apartments. So far neither the state or the federal government has acted to stop the city’s actions. Let’s look back to 2005 to see how this developed....

COMMENTARY According to some political operatives and willing members of the dominant media, the nation has a President who is extraordinarily inept. Yet other critics say George W. Bush is evil beyond description. But conventional wisdom among the President's detractors implies Bush is both of these things, inept and evil, to a point never before seen in world history. According to the far left, Bush, a bumbling fool, is one of the great evil masterminds of our times. However, no one has ever accused liberals of basing their views on logic or truth. If this sounds extreme, it is. To...

U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) speaks under a statue of Abraham Lincoln in a ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of President Truman's Executive Order integrating the U.S. Armed Forces inside the U.S. Capitol Rotunda on Capitol Hill in Washington July 23, 2008. On the left is U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) US Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) (R) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) (L) listen to reporters during a news conference following a vote on housing legislation at the Capitol in Washington, July 26, 2008.

Remember the outrage that still exists today, over the Bush Administrations handling of post-Katrina relief? Perhaps you don't remember that the Republican-Led congress at the time passed a Hurricane relief bill within just 48 hours following the devastation throughout the Southern States. Last week, this congress, led by Senator Reid and Speaker Pelosi, once again showed that they have no leadership ability and no ability to prioritize government services. Fortunately, congress passed the Mortgage-Relief bill, a highly publicized attempt to divert attention away from the growing and impending energy crisis in this nation. But while pandering to the populous, Senator...

(BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss.) - Some people receiving FEMA assistance admitted to NBC 15 cameras thet they are getting a free ride and not looking for work. We asked one of the nation's top democrats, Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, where your tax dollars are really going. When NBC 15 News first met Gwenester Malone a month ago, she was receiving three catered meals a day, while housekeepers made sure her hotel room stayed clean. None of it was costing her a dime. "Since the storm, I haven't had any energy or pep to go get a job," Malone...

Workers World newspaper in the past has supported the candidates of Workers World Party running for national office in the U.S. presidential elections and who have put forward a revolutionary socialist program. This time we are taking the unusual step of endorsing the candidacy of Cynthia McKinney because these are unique times and this is a unique candidate.

Pelosi to lead group to assess storm recovery WASHINGTON -- A U.S. House delegation, led by its three top Democratic leaders, plans to view levees and tour communities in the 9th Ward, Lakeview and St. Bernard Parish as part of a fact-finding visit this weekend to evaluate progress as the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina nears. The delegation, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Majority Whip James Clyburn, is expected to arrive Saturday in New Orleans and participate in a bus tour. Afterward, the representatives will travel to Baton Rouge for a meeting with some...

Is it really true that the people of Iowa and Wisconsin are morally superior to the residents of New Orleans? That certainly seems to be the attitude of some Wisconsin State Journal readers who send me e-mails on a daily basis crowing about how victims of the floods of Cedar Rapids aren't whining or asking for hand-outs, unlike the victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. The messages take the same perspective: When floodwaters drowned downtown Cedar Rapids, people got to work filling sandbags and helping one another. When the residents of New Orleans were drowned in the floodwaters unleashed...

NEW ORLEANS — Between acres of aboveground tombs that are this marshy city's way to inter the dead, there is a strip of land that is an empty tribute to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Unknown to most in town, including the relatives of those who died in the storm, it is the chosen site for a memorial to an estimated 1,600 fatalities, and will serve as the resting place for 85 bodies that remain unclaimed nearly three years after the disaster. During a second-anniversary ceremony, Mayor Ray Nagin shed a tear, gave $1 million in taxpayer money to the...

Census Bureau says New Orleans is the fastest-growing large city in the nation, recovering from being wiped out by Hurricane Katrina. NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- After being pummeled by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, New Orleans is showing signs of recovery - ranking as the fastest-growing large city in the nation, according to a government report released Thursday. The Census Bureau said New Orleans' population rose 13.8%, to 239,124, in the year ended July 1, 2007. That was a faster growth rate than any other city with a population of 100,000 or more.

Hurricane Katrina moved Louisiana's government to suspend the second amendment when it declared a state of emergency. Firearms were confiscated by force of law and military power. When the state of emergency was lifted, the second amendment was not restored, and the people's firearms were not returned. A Federal district court ruled that guns confiscated would not be returned to their rightful owners. We're talking about legal firearm owners here. Common sense dictates that removing firearms from legal owners leaves only the criminals in possession of firearms, emergency or no. The Associated Press reported that some police officers asked if...

Here is video of police seizing guns from citizens of New Orleans after Katrina. While looters ran wild, cops were seizing guns from law abiding citizens. This video is unbelievable and really must be seen.

Your America I exchanged pleasantries with the owner of my neighborhood produce stand while purchasing her fresh tomatoes, onions and world's sweetest watermelon. Feeling the folks in line behind me getting annoyed at the post office, I politely cut off the postmaster telling me about the latest piece of furniture he built in his wood shop. It occurred to me, this is the wonderful world I've created for myself. Be good to people and they're usually good to you. Agenda driven politicians and media have created a negative world view of America. To them, America's glass is forever half empty....

During the week after Father’s Day, I received a number of interesting emails from readers asking me to write about the dearth of looting after the recent floods in Iowa. Specifically, they wanted me to write about the reason there was so much more looting in New Orleans after Katrina hit the “Chocolate City” in 2005. Of course, the problem involves so much more than race – a factor most people are thinking about, even if they won’t admit it...

"Where are all of the Hollywood celebrities holding telethons asking for help in restoring Iowa and helping the folks affected by the floods? Where is all the media asking the tough questions about why the federal government hasn't solved the problem? Asking where the FEMA trucks (and trailers) are? Why isn't the Federal Government relocating Iowa people to free hotels in Chicago? When will Spike Lee say that the Federal Government blew up the levees that failed in Des Moines? Where are Sean Penn and the Dixie Chicks? Where are all the looters stealing high-end tennis shoes and big screen...

The flooding in eastern Iowa has reached the point of catastrophe. Towns are overwhelmed, businesses destroyed, and crops are gone. A fifth of the corn and soybeans are gone. Fox News is calling it "Iowa's Katrina." Here is a gallery of aerial phtographs at the web site of the newspaper I used to deliver every afternoon, the Iowa City Press-Citizen. The thing is, though, the people of eastern Iowa seem to be stepping up in the Iowa stubborn way. I have seen any number of man-on-the-street interviews, and nobody is complaining. They all seem to be working to solve their...

The streets in Cedar Rapids, Iowa - all 400 blocks of them - were filled with floodwaters and other strange sights: floating Dumpsters and utility poles and sandbags piled in vain. The cresting Cedar River wreaked widespread havoc Friday on Iowa's second-largest city, forcing the evacuation of 3,000 homes and a downtown hospital while collapsing a railroad bridge.

FEMA gave away about $85 million in household goods meant for Hurricane Katrina victims, a CNN investigation has found. The material, from basic kitchen goods to sleeping necessities, sat in warehouses for two years before the Federal Emergency Management Agency's giveaway to federal and state agencies this year. James McIntyre, FEMA's acting press secretary, said that FEMA was spending more than $1 million a year to store the material and that another agency wanted the warehouses torn down, so "we needed to vacate them." "Upon review of our assets and our need to continue to store them, we determined that...

These cats residing in and around the FEMA Diamond trailer park in Port Sulphur, La., enjoyed a meal in what appears to be a trash can lid last week. Where they are this week is anyone's guess.

Mayor C. Ray Nagin recently suggested a way to reduce this city’s post-Katrina homeless population: give them one-way bus tickets out of town. Mr. Nagin later insisted the off-the-cuff proposal was just a joke. But he has portrayed the dozens of people camped in a tent city under a freeway overpass near Canal Street as recalcitrant drug and alcohol abusers who refuse shelter, give passers-by the finger and, worst of all, hail from somewhere else. While many of the homeless do have addiction problems or mental illness, a survey by advocacy groups in February showed that 86 percent were from...

BAY ST. LOUIS, MISS. - The anguish of Hurricane Katrina should have ended for Gina Bouffanie and her daughter when they left their FEMA trailer. But with each hospital visit and each labored breath her child takes, the young mother fears it has just begun. "It's just the sickness. I can't get rid of it. It just keeps coming back," said Bouffanie, 27, who was pregnant with her now 15-month-old daughter, Lexi, while living in the trailer. "I'm just like, `Oh God, I wish like this would stop.' If I had known it would get her sick, I wouldn't have...

NEW ORLEANS - Despite more than $22 million in repairs, a levee that broke with catastrophic effect during Hurricane Katrina is leaking again because of the mushy ground on which New Orleans was built, raising serious questions about the reliability of the city's flood defenses Outside engineering experts who have studied the project told The Associated Press that the type of seepage spotted at the 17th Street Canal in the Lakeview neighborhood afflicts other New Orleans levees, too, and could cause some of them to collapse during a storm. The Army Corps of Engineers has spent about $4 billion so...

It’s not often you watch a video where a frail, 98-pound grandmother is slammed into the wall by a burly police officer, handcuffed and dragged from her home — all because she refused to surrender her firearm and leave her home. She was not a felon, drug dealer or other miscreant but was a homeowner in New Orleans immediately after Hurricane Katrina. This somewhat brushed-over bit of history is reappearing in discussion on talk radio and other locations as we await the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court on the District of Columbia’s wholesale ban on handgun possession. In following...

NEW ORLEANS — Josue Vega was one of thousands of immigrant workers who flocked to New Orleans in 2005 in hopes of finding a rebuilding job in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. He worked seven days a week and earned more than twice his normal earnings. But with work now down to three days a week, the 20-year-old is planning to go home to Honduras. "My goal is to be here until November, and then never come back," he said. "I've had enough." The stops and starts of the post-Katrina rebuilding effort, often due to bureaucratic delays in funding, still...

Apparently, Louisiana legislators have decided that everything wrong in the state has been fixed. The Senate finance committee has passed Senate Bill 672 to the floor of the Senate for debate. This bill sponsored by Senator Ann Duplessis (D, New Orleans) will raise the base pay for Louisiana legislators from $16,800 to a whopping $50,000 per year. This is a 300% increase in the base pay for a part-time legislative position. An additional $12,000 or so would be added on to cover expenses. This can only mean one thing. Louisiana is fully repaired from the damages of hurricanes Katrina and...

GENEVA (AP) — Two human rights experts for the United Nations on Thursday criticized a plan by New Orleans authorities to raze public housing projects, saying it will force the predominantly black residents into homelessness. They charged that demolition would harm thousands of people by denying them a place to live in a city where housing already is scarce since Hurricane Katrina hit in August 2005. The joint statement was not a U.N. finding, but only the individual views of Miloon Kothari, a special investigator on housing matters for the U.N. Human Rights Council, and Gay McDougall, a lawyer who...

BATON ROUGE, La. - A construction company owner who lost two homes in Hurricane Katrina claimed a $97 million Powerball prize, a jackpot won off a ticket he bought at a convenience store where he stopped to buy his wife a gallon of milk. When he turned in the winning ticket, Carl Hunter became the largest Powerball winner in Louisiana's history. He won the jackpot in January, but the 73-year-old small businessman waited nearly four months to claim the prize. An avid lottery player, Hunter said he already had bought a Powerball ticket on Jan. 16 at the gas station...

Don't stop hurricanes, guide them 03 May 2008 From New Scientist Print Edition. Would-be hurricane fighters hoping to stop a future Katrina before it makes landfall should aim to wound, not kill. The goal should be to re-route hurricanes and ease their fury, rather than try to stop them forming in the first place. This is the latest advice from weather modification experts. The field has a colourful history. In the 1960s and early 1970s, scientists on "Project Stormfury" tried in vain to disrupt the inner structure of hurricanes by seeding them with silver iodide crystals. Various other far-fetched ideas...

New Orleans (AP) -- The Army Corps of Engineers can be held liable for flood damage caused by a "hurricane highway," a navigation channel that is believed to have funneled Hurricane Katrina's storm surge into the city, a federal judge ruled Friday. The Corps of Engineers had argued that it was immune from liability because the channel is part of New Orleans' flood control system. The law says the federal government cannot be sued if something goes wrong with a flood control project such as a levee, reservoir or dam. Judge Stanwood Duval dismissed that argument, saying the Mississippi River-Gulf...

In a speech from New Orleans last week, Republican presidential candidate John McCain lashed out at the Bush administration for its response to Hurricane Katrina. McCain's remarks, which appeared calculated to make disaster relief a key campaign issue, revived harsh memories of the savage storm that inundated the Mississippi Delta in late August 2005, leaving more than 1,800 people dead and causing widespread property damage. Although the floodwaters long ago receded, government officials are still counting the disaster's costs. Earlier this year, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers disclosed that 489,000 claimants are seeking damages caused by poorly designed levees....

Senator John McCain took direct aim at the Bush administration on Thursday as he stood in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, the area hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and declared the handling of the disaster “terrible and disgraceful” and pledged that it would never happen again. “I am for doing what is necessary — $4.2 billion, $10.5 billion, $50.5 billion,” Mr. McCain said at the time. “The $4.2 billion is not the end of the requirement.”

Mike Reagan just said he wouldn't campaign for John McCain. Michael is disgusted that he would go to New Orleans and condemn the Federal Government for inaction. He also called the people in NOLA who wouldn't step up and accept responsibility losers. He was referring to Nagin and Co. He said McCain is an idiot.

NEW ORLEANS — Senator John McCain took direct aim at the Bush administration on Thursday as he stood in the lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, the area hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and declared that “never again will a disaster of this nature be handled in the terrible and disgraceful way that it was handled.”

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - John McCain toured still hurricane-damaged areas of New Orleans and declared that if the disaster had happened on his watch, he would have immediately landed his plane at the nearest Air Force base. The Republican presidential candidate is campaigning this week in what he calls forgotten areas of the country. He offered a pledge Thursday to New Orleans residents that their situation will not be forgotten and that such a botched disaster response will never happen again. McCain was unsparing in his criticism of the Bush administration. He said Congress must share some of the blame,...

The ruling by U.S. District Judge L.T. Senter Jr. applied to the federal lawsuit filed by Thomas and Pamela McIntosh... The case was a key lawsuit filed by embattled tort attorney Richard "Dickie" Scruggs, who sued on behalf of dozens of storm victims claiming that State Farm routinely denied claims based on bad faith and fraud. Scruggs has since pleaded guilty to federal bribery charges in an unrelated case and no longer represents storm victims. Scruggs and his partners in the Scruggs Katrina Group claimed fraud after E.A. Renfroe & Co., an Alabama firm that provided damage assessments for State...

If Gregory Christopher Decay is convicted of capital murder this week, his attorneys plan to argue that the former New Orleans resident pulled the trigger on a Fayetteville couple while traumatized from Hurricane Katrina. The capital murder trial for Decay, 24, begins today in Washington County. He is accused in the April 2007 slayings of Kevin Barkley Jones and Kendall Rachell Rice, both 24. Jones and Rice were shot in the head in a drug dispute, court records show. Their bodies were found in their Fayetteville apartment. Deputy public defender Julie Tolleson said that if Decay is convicted, she will...

GULFPORT, Miss. — After the federal government announced in February that it would no longer use travel trailers to house the victims of future disasters, there was an initial sense of relief along the hurricane-scarred Gulf Coast. The flimsy little white boxes are unpleasant to live in and tainted with toxic formaldehyde fumes. And they cost the federal government billions of dollars. But that relief quickly turned to exasperation when it became clear that the government did not have an immediate backup plan. Without the trailers, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has no reliable way to rush immediate shelter to...

NEW ORLEANS — Calling it a “pivotal moment’’ in the 215-year history of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, Archbishop Alfred Hughes said Wednesday that 25 church parishes — 19 of them shuttered since Hurricane Katrina — will close and merge with neighboring congregations by year’s end.The majority of those Catholic parishes are in New Orleans, while a handful are in St. Bernard Parish and one each are in Plaquemines and Jefferson parishes.Hughes also announced that two other church parishes, both in the Jefferson suburb of Kenner, will close and merge by the middle of next year. Four other church parishes...