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Katrina was the biggest natural disaster that ever hit the United States. Noone anticipated or was prepared for such damage. Besides being a smaller hurricane that did not hit New Orleans directly, Gustav was managed by a competent Republican governor who heeded the warnings and took appropriate measures to protect the city and its people. Those whose vision are not clouded by the need to "get" President Bush will remember that the incompetent mayor of the city, Ray Nagin, ignored the warnings of the Bush Administration to evacuate the city. Who can forget the pictures of the hundreds of empty...

Today’s Herald-Tribune, southwest Florida’s leading newspaper, published a letter to the editor demanding the impeachment of President Bush “because he lied about knowing the levies would be breached”. Perhaps this is a rant of another leftist kook who has given up on ‘Bush lied’ about WMD, but more likely it was the direct result of the lie that the Associated Press told earlier this week that, in fact, the President WAS told that the levies would be breached. It is little consolation that, under fire from hundreds of bloggers, AP has issued a retraction of its original story.

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Under pressure from a federal judge, Gov. Kathleen Blanco set an April 22 date for New Orleans elections. Though Blanco solidified the elections date Tuesday with her executive order, the state doesn't yet have all the approvals it needs to proceed with April elections in New Orleans for mayor, city council, sheriff and tax assessors. The Legislature and the U.S. Justice Department need to sign off on Secretary of State Al Ater's emergency elections plan for the city, which includes beefed-up absentee balloting and the creation of "mega-polling" sites to replace those damaged by the...

WASHINGTON — The White House officially rejected a plan that would have created a federal corporation to purchase and redevelop Louisiana homes damaged by Hurricane Katrina. U.S. Rep. Richard Baker, R-Baton Rouge, introduced legislation last year to create the Louisiana Recovery Corp. The panel would use treasury bonds to buy damaged homes on parcels to be repackaged and redeveloped. But Allan Hubbard, the chief economic adviser for President Bush, indicated in conversations with Baker on Monday that the Bush does not support the legislation, Baker said Tuesday. “It’s dead now,” said Walter Isaacson, vice chairman of the Louisiana Recovery Authority,...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Former presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, who have raised about $110 million for Hurricane Katrina victims, announced $90 million worth of grants here Wednesday, including $30 million for higher education institutions along the Gulf Coast. Another $40 million will be divided among the three states hardest hit by Katrina - Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama - and $20 million will go to faith-based organizations. "Donations we got ranged from the smallest - $16 from a child's lemonade stand - to multimillion-dollar ones from foundations and corporations. Even foriegn governments have given us money to help...

Mayor Nagin blames racism, class bias for slow Katrina response NAGIN. I'm still shocked that this happened in America MONTEGO BAY, St James - Mayor of New Orleans Ray Nagin says he believes that the slow pace of activity by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in the immediate aftermath of hurricane Katrina that devastated the city in August was based on class and racism. "I think that if this (New Orleans) was Orange County, California or South Beach in Miami, I do think the response would have been different," Nagin said. "I think it's a combination of racial issues...

Photo by Terri FenselOnce a master of the universe, Jerry Luke LeBlanc now sits in the belly of the political beast, and the beast is eating its own. The first thing Jerry Luke LeBlanc does after shaking hands and offering a weak smile is grab a bottle of pills for his fiscal migraine. There are dark circles under his eyes and he's moving a little slow. "I'm having an Excedrin moment," he jests, shaking the bottle and exiting his office momentarily. It's understandable. In 2004 LeBlanc vacated his seat in the House of Representatives, where he chaired the House...

Response to storms puts her leadership in the spotlight BATON ROUGE -- Gov. Kathleen Blanco has taken a lot of heat since Hurricane Katrina devastated southeast Louisiana in August, leaving her with arguably the biggest challenge that any modern-day Louisiana governor has ever faced. Caught between overwhelmed local leaders and a federal bureaucracy that was simply not prepared for the size of the catastrophe, Blanco was criticized for her response during the crisis by New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and deposed FEMA Director Michael Brown. She has been the target of various pundits who have commented on everything from...

Gov. Kathleen Blanco chopped $431 million in state spending Saturday in a move that could keep some state colleges closed indefinitely. Blanco made the budget cuts a day before legislators are scheduled to convene at the State Capitol to begin addressing the devastation caused by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The reductions are on top of the $70 million that the governor expects to save through an earlier spending freeze. Coupled together, the fiscal tightening would get the state about halfway toward resolving a nearly $1 billion tax revenue shortfall caused by the storms. Higher education, which is already grappling with...

Associated Press photo Prince Charles is greeted by Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco upon his arrival at the New Orleans Airport Friday, Nov. 4, 2005. NEW ORLEANS -- Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, flew into New Orleans on Friday for a brief glimpse of the ravaged city and a chance to meet a few of the hundreds of thousands of residents whose lives were turned upside-down by Hurricane Katrina. After an airport ceremony to greet their flight from Washington, the couple went to the impoverished lower Ninth Ward, which was all but obliterated when water breached one of the...

BILOXI, Miss. After Hurricane Katrina roared in, Gov. Haley Barbour quickly convened a special legislative session and, just 10 days after the storm, appointed a commission to study rebuilding Mississippi's coastline. The former Republican National Committee chairman and influential Washington lobbyist also traveled to the nation's capital several times to extract promises of federal aid from friends in the Bush administration. Because of the Barbour's take-charge approach to the disaster, even some of Mississippi's staunchest Democrats are saying he may be tough to beat if he seeks a second term in 2007. In Louisiana, it is a different story: Some...

BATON ROUGE, La. -- With Louisiana facing a nearly $1 billion budget deficit because of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Gov. Kathleen Blanco's plans to slash $300 million in state spending -- the maximum she is allowed by law -- will be detailed Friday to lawmakers.

Did anybody catch the conference on Fox News today where Governor Blanco asked President Bush to change the rules to allow her to pay the salaries of the NOPD police department with Federal dollars? Remember, this is the same police department where one third left, a few others were filmed looting, and who basically lost control of the city. Some of them were sent to Vegas for some R&R and counseling (all expenses paid I'd bet). And never ever forget, that this is the same police deparment who implemented and enforced an illegal confiscation of weapons from law abiding citizens...

The US military has categories of stupidity. The highest is “gross public dumb.” But a higher category is needed for moments like the “bus interview” by Louisiana Governor Blanco. It is spectacularly stupid. You’ve got to see this to believe it. Interview of Governor Blanco by John Hill of Louisiana Gannett News, 19 September, 2005 “GANNETT: In hindsight, what would you have done differently in the first response? “BLANCO: Well, I would have placed less confidence in a structure elsewhere (the Federal Emergency Management Association) and depended more on ourselves. As an example, when buses were not delivered in a...

With the all-but-corporate death of the UPI, the AP is the main American source for news in the United States. Associated Press articles are mindlessly quoted by newspapers across the nation. Many local radio and TV stations rip and read either directly from the AP, or indirectly from local newspapers which use the AP. Therefore, it’s reprehensible that the AP, three weeks after Hurricane Katrina hit, has not found out that there WAS an Evacuation Plan for New Orleans and southern Louisiana which was not followed. The Plan is on the Internet and available to anyone who can push a...

For the sake of today’s column, we’ll say institutional racism played a very large part in what went wrong in New Orleans. Question: How do we identify this racism? In other words, how will we know it when we see it again? Jim Breslin offers a definition – “If whites were in trouble in New Orleans, I trust that this government would have been there early” – meaning that in any disaster-ridden city where the majority population is black (or Hispanic, or simply un-Caucasian), Republican-lead government will take its sweet time about getting to work. Still, having to explain Breslin’s...

Most of the television news channels and the political left have been hysterical in their comments about Hurricane Katrina. CNN actually committed fraud by editing out of a previous newscast the report that the President had urged local officials to evacuate New Orleans before Katrina hit. Insane claims by left-wing nuts that President Bush botched the recovery effort on purpose so as to kill black people are repeated by the Main Stream Media without analysis or perspective. Meanwhile, no one points out that it was President Bush who implored Governor Blanco to issue a first-ever mandatory evacuation order for the...

Here is the lede paragraph from a Washington Post Editorial today (3 September), entitled “Left Behind”: “THE LACK OF National Guard troops because of the war in Iraq; the Bush administration's failure to protect coastal wetlands; the reorganization of the Federal Emergency Management Agency: All have been blamed, somewhat arbitrarily, for the stunning scenes of chaos at the New Orleans Superdome and convention center, for the unprecedented floodwaters in the city, and for the huge numbers of people without food or water. But if blame is to be laid and lessons are to be drawn, one point stands out as...