Posted on 09/17/2005 7:42:34 AM PDT by Wombat101
Louisiana Officials Indicted Before Katrina Hit
Federal audits found dubious expenditures by the state's emergency preparedness agency, which will administer FEMA hurricane aid.
WASHINGTON — Senior officials in Louisiana's emergency planning agency already were awaiting trial over allegations stemming from a federal investigation into waste, mismanagement and missing funds when Hurricane Katrina struck. And federal auditors are still trying to track as much as $60 million in unaccounted for funds that were funneled to the state from the Federal Emergency Management Agency dating back to 1998. In March, FEMA demanded that Louisiana repay $30.4 million to the federal government.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
My point is that they have been hollering all along about Bush not getting help there in time, and now it turns out that they had squandered funds earmarked for disaster preparedness. It is not so much as a shift the blame as it is an effort to go on offense so that no one sees that you have a crappy defense.
Exactly.
And this story begins to refute the cry that the Feds were slow off the mark.
The screaming from the "other side" is merely them preaching to the choir. It is what you would expect them to do and therefore, it is irrelevant. Ducks quack, cows moo, democrats squeal like banshees about irrelevancies and idocies. Life goes on.
What counts is that we begin to realize that Homeland Security has rapidly become a huge boondoggle with people building private empires and squandering public funds. It needs to be investigated, the perpetrators need to be sentenced and the public needs to know that's being rectified RIGHT NOW. That is not a political consideration it is a matter of accountability.
I would say the same thing if a republican governor and mayor were in charge. Party is irrelevant when it comes to disasters. Only results count.
This may also explain why Bush sent both Gonzales and Mueller down to NO last week. I thought it a little unusual that the Attorney General and the FBI director would be directly involved in rescue and recovery operation. Besides the graft, we could also be looking at some criminal culpability.
If they can indict a man and woman for the deaths of the nursing home residents. How about an indictment of the levee board members that siphoned off the levve repair money? I haven't sen a pig fly yet. Will keep my eyes open though.
Thank you so much, Dog. That is exactly the article I heard referenced on FNC this morning.
Can you give us the link to the actual article here, where we don't need a log in.
I do have a log in for the LA Times, but it's not accepting my password this morning.
Thanks.
The $30.4 million FEMA is demanding back was money paid into that program and others, including a program to buy out flood-prone homeowners. As much as $30 million in additional unaccounted for spending also is under review in audits that have not yet been released, according to a FEMA official.
HOW CAN THIS BE...EVEYONE KNOWS DUMOCRATS TAKE CARE OF THE POOR (BLACKS?).
You'll get no argument from me on that. I would love to see the levee board under the bright lights of a televised trial.
However, when it's the LA-FREAKIN'-Times that reports this stuff it's noteworthy. It shows me that the finger pointing strategy has been a failure and that the press has begun to shift (inch by inch)from reflexive anti-Bushism over Katrina to (semi-)responsible reporting. Even if it's only a short spurt of sanity, it's important.
I found it on Lucianne.com this morning. One the featured articles today. No logon necessary.
Thanks; I'll go over there and read it.
It is very political, why else would the LA Times put this article in their Sat edition?
I have to have my password to get to that article on Lucianne too. There must be a setting for cookies or something on my computer that has changed because all of a sudden, my password isn't being accepted for the LA Times.
Anyone that doesn't believe this money was intended to be a payoff to locals in LA is smoking funny cigs.
Actually Brown should be given a medal for going after these crooks. WILL THE MSM APOLOGIZE TO BROWN FOR THEIR VICIOUS ATTACKS.
The LA Times web police must be on to us. Give me a minute and I'll post the entire article.
I don't think we're supposed to publish entire articles from the LA Times.
You could either just post the link to the article you can read or you could freepmail me the article.
Either way, thank you for your efforts to let more of us read the entire article, although I may be the only one having difficulty.
This is much, much worse than I had been expecting to read.
I think some of the problems Blanco had federalizing the relief operation stemmed directly from the problems that Louisiana Homeland Security had with FEMA, especially with FEMA demanding that over $30 million be returned to the feds!
Even Colonels in charge of the Louisiana National Guard were corrupt! THis is beyond belief.
But this article goes a loooong way in explaining why Blanco was so resistant to federalizing the operation and why Landrieu and Blanco hate FEMA and blame them for EVERYTHING.
FEMA was demanding that over $30M be returned to the feds because of mismanagement and outright fraud!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.