Free Republic

Aaron F. Broussard, the president of a Louisiana parish where hundreds of Marylanders helped in the days after Katrina, got a warm welcome from Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. yesterday and the unusual honor of a speaking slot in the middle of his State of the State address. (snip) He got a rousing ovation from the Maryland legislators and dignitaries gathered for the speech. But when he returns home, Broussard will face signs stuck in lawns across the parish that say, "Lyin', Cryin', time to be resignin'" and a petition drive aimed at getting him out of office. His critics...

Rev. Jim Wallis says hurricane exposed 'social disaster' of poverty | The Rev. Jim Wallis has been advising the Democrats to make poverty their central issue for years, but he says now they're starting to pay attention because Hurricane Katrina exposed disparities in New Orleans to a shocked nation. "Sometimes it takes a natural disaster to expose a social disaster," Wallis said. "The waves of Katrina washed away cities and people, but they may also wash away our public denial of how many people in the country are poor." Wallis, the editor of Sojourners magazine and author of "God's Politics:...

Former Vice President Al Gore urged Americans on Friday to hold the Bush administration accountable for failing to adequately prepare for and respond to Hurricane Katrina. "When the corpses of American citizens are floating in toxic flood waters five days after a hurricane struck, it is time not only to respond directly to the victims of the catastrophe, but to hold ... the leaders of our nation accountable," Gore told environmentalists at the Sierra Club's national convention. Gore had been scheduled to give a speech to state insurance commissioners in New Orleans this weekend about the likelihood that global warming...