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There are some arguments, of course, that could be offered against a simple comparison of timelines. However, given the political realities of hurricanes making landfall around New Orleans, I find it amazing that Obama delayed a visit to this area. In light of a levee being breached, massive flooding, and torrential rain damage, one really has to wonder whether political gamesmanship made him ignore these people for political points. Additionally, President Bush flew over the day before he visited. (Note the wiki timeline below: it seems to indicate a Bush visit on 1 September, but I could not corroborate that.)...

President Barack Obama took a veiled jab at his predecessor, George W. Bush, Monday during an appearance in New Orleans, where the former was touring damage caused by last week's Hurricane Isaac.  Here's what Obama said, according to the White House transcript:  

Would this remain a local DC story if the accused had been staff director of an important committee in a Republican controlled Senate? >>>>A former senior congressional aide was indicted this week in D.C. Superior Court on charges that he sexually assaulted two women after drugging them with a sedative that he allegedly put in their drinks. Donny Ray Williams Jr., 36, who served as staff director for a Senate subcommittee and worked in the offices of several members of Congress, gave at least one woman Ambien and assaulted her while she was unconscious, according to court papers. Williams was...

Press: As Isaac bore down on New Orleans, the administration's media toadies preferred to talk not about substantive issues, but on how the "shadow of Bush and Katrina" hung over the delayed GOP convention in Tampa. Those in the press whose legs tingle at every administration utterance apparently share the view that a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. Isaac, barely making it as a hurricane, was seen as yet another chance to blame George W. Bush for something and resurrect media falsehoods about Hurricane Katrina, which hit New Orleans seven years ago. The Republican National Convention was pushed...

President Bush declared a state of emergency in Louisiana (search) on Saturday because of the approach of Hurricane Katrina (search) and his spokesman urged residents along the coast to heed authorities' advice to evacuate... ...The president's emergency declaration authorizes the FEMA to coordinate all disaster relief efforts and to provide appropriate assistance in a number of Louisiana parishes, or counties.

Tampa and the Republican convention seem to have dodged the initial impact of Tropical Storm Isaac. But the full impact of its political spin has yet to be felt. Issac is building power over the Gulf of Mexico as I write this, and the power of the political spin builds as the storm approaches the landfall areas of Hurricane Katrina. While no one wishes for Isaac to follow the map track of Katrina, those living in its path need to prepare for the wind, rain and storm surges. Those following its political track need to brace for the impact of...

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Isaac closed in on the U.S. Gulf of Mexico coast on Monday, triggering some mandatory evacuation orders and disrupting U.S. offshore oil production as it threatened to make landfall between Florida and Louisiana as a Category 2 hurricane. The wide, slow-moving storm swiped south Florida on Sunday and strengthened over the warm Gulf waters. It was expected to reach land Tuesday night or early Wednesday, the anniversary of devastating Hurricane Katrina seven years ago. The U.S. National Hurricane Center warned that the storm could push vast amounts of seawater over the shore, flooding the...

New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast faced the anniversary of devastating Hurricane Katrina by hunkering down for new storm amid "a high level of anxiety," as the Crescent City's mayor put it Monday. Forecasters project Tropical Storm Isaac will reach hurricane strength before hitting the northern Gulf Coast early Wednesday, seven years to the day after Katrina slammed ashore near the Louisiana-Mississippi state line. Residents of low-lying coastal areas from the Florida Panhandle to southeastern Louisiana were ordered to evacuate ahead of storm surges and heavy rain, while the mayor of New Orleans -- which was flooded by...

Thousands in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama were being told early Monday to leave their Gulf Coast homes ahead of the arrival of Tropical Storm Isaac as forecasters warned it was gaining strength as it followed the same path Hurricane Katrina took seven years earlier. The governors of the three states each declared a state of emergency, with Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley ordering mandatory evacuations to begin at 8 a.m. for residents who live along the coast and for those in some low-lying areas inland. "I am urging everyone to take precautions now, monitor weather warnings, and be prepared for whatever...

On August 24th, we warned on Forbes that Tropical Storm Isaac could pose a threat to energy markets and even rival Hurricane Katrina in its destructive power (Could Tropical Storm Isaac Turn Into Another Katrina?). While the computer models are still showing a substantial spread in solutions, it appears more likely that Isaac will make landfall somewhere near the Louisiana, Mississippi Gulf Coast. This track will provide the storm more time to intensify over the very warm water of the Gulf of Mexico. The entire Gulf Coast from Lake Charles, LA to Panama City, FL should be aware of the...

NHC has been slow to adjust their forecast, but models in the last 24week hours have been indicating a possible Cat 3 hitting New Orleans. While dems have been rooting for the Tampa landfall to ruin our convention, a NO landfall catastrophe with Jindal running circles around 0, while 0 is playing politics during the aftermath... maybe it is their convention that gets ruined. I am certainly not rooting for a disaster, but it would certainly be ironic.

WDSU-TV reported this afternoon that former Mayor Ray Nagin has been ordered to appear before a federal grand jury on Friday. The source of the station's information is unclear; the report simply says that "the WDSU I-Team has learned" of the scheduled appearance. The station says that the subpoena went out last week. The report says that Robert Jenkins, Nagin's attorney, "declined to confirm the information." Jenkins frequently appears as an analyst on WDSU. He did not immediately return a phone call from The Times-Picayune. It's been well-publicized that the feds have been building a case against Nagin. The Times-Picayune...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- More than 3,000 lots flooded by Hurricane Katrina and bought with federal money in an emergency bailout sit idle across this city - a multimillion-dollar drain on federal, state and city coffers that lends itself to no easy solution. An Associated Press examination of the properties sold to the government by homeowners abandoning New Orleans after the catastrophic 2005 flood has found that about $86 million has been spent on 5,100 abandoned parcels. *** "Right now nobody on those 3,000-plus properties is contributing. It's costing the city and state government to maintain them. Police got to...

While in office, Mayor Ray Nagin accepted a $50,000 payoff and shipments of free granite from city vendor Frank Fradella, and after leaving City Hall, he became a highly paid consultant to Fradella, according to court documents filed this morning. Fradella was in federal court to plead guilty to one count of securities fraud and one count of conspiring to bribe Nagin, described in court documents as "Public Official A." The government's description of that public official, as well as other clues, make clear that it is Nagin. Nagin has not been charged. He has not responded to an email...

Covington businessman Frank Fradella has been charged in a new bill of information that appears to implicate former Mayor Ray Nagin, who has been under investigation for months by a federal grand jury. Federal prosecutors this afternoon charged Fradella with one count of securities fraud and one count of conspiring to bribe a public official. The new documents do not name the official -- rather, they call him "Public Official A." But the official is clearly Nagin; the document describes him as an agent of the city of New Orleans from May 2002 through May 2010. That coincides with Nagin's...

All of which lends a certain pungency to something Sarah Palin said recently at a conference of conservative activists in Las Vegas. "Every citizen can be a reporter, can take on the powers that be," she said. According to Politico, she was quoting Matt Drudge. Ordinarily, you would dismiss it as just another silly thing Sarah Palin said. There is no shortage of those.

A class-action settlement agreement has been reached to resolve nearly all the remaining court claims over allegations that government-issued trailers exposed Gulf Coast residents to hazardous fumes after Hurricane Katrina, a lead plaintiffs' attorney said Monday. In a court filing late Monday, plaintiffs' lawyers and several companies that manufactured FEMA trailers after the 2005 storm asked U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt to approve an expanded version of a multimillion-dollar deal initially announced in April. A separate agreement with four FEMA contractors that installed or refurbished trailers will be filed Tuesday, lead plaintiffs' attorney Gerald Meunier told The Associated Press. Nearly...

A federal grand jury is investigating whether city vendors gave former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin gratuities ranging from plane tickets to materials and equipment for his family's granite-countertop business and also helped the firm land an exclusive installation deal with a retailing giant while Nagin was in office, according to several sources close to the probe. The federal probe is zeroing in on Nagin along three parallel tracks: luxury travel and home maintenance provided by city technology vendors; a granite countertop installation contract that Nagin's family company got from The Home Depot; and the possibility that at least two...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — When the Federal Emergency Management Agency mailed out 83,000 debt notices this year to victims of Hurricane Katrina and other 2005 storms, one of the letters showed up in David Bellinger's mailbox. Bellinger, who is blind, needed a friend to read it and break the news that FEMA wants him to pay back more than $3,200 in federal aid he received after Katrina.

Since Katrina, the Hispanic population in the New Orleans metro area has skyrocketed by more than 33,000 people. That's a 57-percent increase in the past decade, much higher than the national average. They came for the construction jobs — and they've chosen to stay. Often, you can find about a dozen Latino men hanging out near a home improvement store looking for work near a mostly black neighborhood. Yohanni Castillo, 38, a carpenter from Honduras, says he's been here since the early days of Katrina. "Carpentry, demolitions, any kind of construction," he says. But lately, he says there's been less...