After Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf coast,
your local newspapers and TV stations were probably preoccupied with hurricane coverage, to the exclusion
of everything else, so you may be tired of hearing about it. But there are some stories on the
air (and in print) that fail to make note of key issues. Or worse, they may have been showing
only certain specific aspects of the story while neglecting or intentionally concealing others.
New Orleans was and still is a terrible place to live. It is a city famous for exhibitionists,
witchcraft, voodoo, gambling, prostitution, drunkenness, pickpockets, chronic poverty and, of course, murder. Personally,
I can see no legitimate reason to go there. The murder rate in the New Orleans metro area is the highest
in the country.* The murder
rate in New Orleans is the nation's second highest when you look at the statistics
city by city.*
People in Houston and Dallas have found that many -- if not the majority -- of the Katrina evacuees are freeloaders and violent
troublemakers. Was it a mistake to invite them to Texas? At the time, that was what the rest of
the country expected from a neighboring state. And it was the politicians who made the invitation --
we didn't have time to vote on it. I suspect the elected leaders of Texas and the other 48 states
won't be so quick to invite strangers in when disaster strikes again.
So far, the federal government has spent about $100,000 per capita on "temporary" housing, relocation,
repair and rebuilding in the New Orleans area. And if you ask the people of Louisiana, even that's not
enough.
Note: About two thirds of the material from this page has been moved to other pages, in order
to make each page load more quickly. This should make it a little easier to find the topics in which
you are interested.
There is also a separate page about the FBI raid on the offices of
Congressman William J. Jefferson, which has
nothing to do with the hurricane, but a lot to do with New Orleans.
Subtopics are arranged in no particular order of importance and may be rearranged at any time.
Section 1: Looters, thugs, gangs, and their enablers
The latest: Post-Katrina
looters get 15-year sentences. Three people convicted of hauling away liquor, wine and beer
from a grocery store after Hurricane Katrina were sentenced Wednesday [6/28/2006] to 15 years in prison.
The Year of the
Looter. What a year! First of all we got to see New Orleans looters
calmly pushing shopping carts full of plasma TVs and expensive athletic shoes down the
flooded streets of the Big Easy. Then we saw the rioters of the Paris banlieus
calmly torching the cars of their neighbors and friends. … Almost everyone agrees that
they are thugs. The big problem is the looting that does not provoke outrage from the
chattering and the moralizing classes.
The Day the Glue Came Undone. Scenes
of the devastation and suffering inflicted by Hurricane Katrina will long remain in our memories. Equally
horrifying were the pictures of New Orleans residents — and policemen — helping themselves to goods
from stores. They weren't just taking food, water, and diapers; some were taking television
sets, jewelry, and other luxury items.
Neighbors
tell of gun battles after the storm. After the storm came the carjackers and
burglars. Then came the gun battles and the chemical explosions that shook the restored
Victorians in New Orleans' Algiers Point neighborhood. "The hurricane was a breeze compared
with the crime and terror that followed," said Gregg Harris, a psychotherapist who lives in the
battered area.
Rep. Peter
King: Gangs Blocking Relief Efforts. Armed gangs of roaming
thugs are the primary reason relief efforts in flood-ravaged New Orleans
have been delayed, a prominent New York congressman said Friday morning [9/2/2005].
Throwing
out the thugs. Why is it not only common knowledge but also accepted practice
that organized crime and gangs hold much of the power and control much of the commerce in
New Orleans? Will New Orleans return to business as usual? Or will you uplift the entire
community by throwing out the thugs and their vile wares for which New Orleans is infamous?
Radio
host urges poor to loot. In a broadcast yesterday [9/2/2005], Air America radio
talk radio host Randi Rhodes repeatedly urged listeners in the hurricane-devastated
Gulf Coast to go out and loot, insisting the poor should be allowed to steal goods at will.
Editor's Note:
If the FCC deserves its continued existence, the radio stations carrying that message should
have their licenses challenged at renewal time. Radio stations exist, according to the
Communications Act of 1934 as amended, to serve the "public interest, convenience and
necessity," and statements of this sort, inciting an already lawless crowd to further
violent felonies, are well outside the envelope of protected free speech.
The Battle of
New Orleans. Of all the bad news from New Orleans, the most disturbing has been
the reports of spreading disorder, with looting, marauding gangs and even sniper fire at helicopters
and rescue workers. Americans sometimes expect their government to do far too much — such
as ensure low gasoline prices — but they do have a right to expect that it will at least
provide for the safety of its citizens, even or perhaps especially in a crisis.
Evacuee Charged With Raping
Mentally Challenged Girl. Glenn Dorsett is accused of raping a 13-year-old mentally
challenged girl from New Orleans at the Assembly of God church campground on Hwy. 7 that has
been set up for hurricane evacuees. If convicted, he could be sentenced to life in
prison.
Shoot looters. The
looters are helping themselves to DVD and MP3 players, beer, flat screen TVs, clothing, booze, guns, candy
and sporting goods. Some simply loaded up [stolen] shopping carts with all they could hold and boldly
pushed them out the doors and down the sodden streets. "With no police officers in sight," reported
The New York Times, "people carried empty bags, shopping carts and backpacks through the door of
the Rite Aid on Wednesday [8/31/2005] and left with them full. As they came and went, the looters
nodded companionably to one another."
Observations
on the decent, the dire and the despicable. Apparently Sid [Blumenthal] has
forgotten the Senate's diversion of domestic infrastructure funding to cover the 700-percent
cost overrun for Ted Kennedy's Big Dig boondoggle. Perhaps that $16 billion American
tax payers spent on 7.5 miles of Boston highway could have been better spent on levee
improvements in New Orleans — but we digress.
New Orleans Saints and
Sphincters. While starving souls are helping themselves (with the legitimate consent
of the National Guard and local cops) to some [food], the looters are stocking up on CDs,
Tag Heuers, 47 pairs of Nike's, Swarovski crystal and massive amounts of Heineken. Correct
me if I'm wrong, but the last time I checked, Bose Wave radios and tennis bracelets weren't part of
the major four food groups.
Rebuilding
New Orleans — and America. The physical devastation caused by hurricane
Katrina has painfully revealed the moral devastation of our times that has led to mass
looting in New Orleans, assaults on people in shelters, the raping of girls, and shots
being fired at helicopters that are trying to rescue people.
Blame
belongs on New Orleans criminals — and cops. The best place to
start a search for an accountability breakdown should be at the local level, preferably
among criminals and cops – in that order. It is little secret that New
Orleans has a large and nasty criminal class. The city's murder rate is about ten times
the U.S. average. Only one in four murders results in a conviction, in large measure
because witnesses fear retaliation or don't think their testimony is worth the effort.
City of the Dead. I
haven't the [words] to express just how thoroughly revolted I am by these [people] when
I hear them squawking on-camera about how "ain't nobody did nuthin'
fa us" — when they were told to leave! What
else, in a forty-eight-hour window, could government do?
Troops
find grisly scenes in New Orleans. Troops scouring New Orleans for survivors and
victims reported finding at least 40 mutilated bodies in the Convention Center refugee
center. Arkansas National Guardsman Mikel Brooks told the New Orleans Times Picayune
many of the dead were elderly, or showed signs of trauma. "There's another one
in the freezer, a 7-year-old with her throat cut," he said.
New Orleans murder rate on the rise
again. Last year, university researchers conducted an experiment in which
police fired 700 blank rounds in a New Orleans neighborhood in a single
afternoon. No one called to report the gunfire. … The city's
murder rate is still far lower than a decade ago, when New Orleans was the
country's murder capital. But in recent years, the city's homicide
rate has climbed again to nearly 10 times the national average.
Update: Correction
to the New Orleans Murders Story. About 900 rounds of live ammunition were
fired by officers over a two-day period in December 2003 during a demonstration of a gunshot
detection system. … [and only] one public call came in about the gunfire.
New Orleans, Criminals,
Looters, and Second Amendment Rights. Predators are always in a society's
midst waiting for their release from the restrictions of law and order to pillage, loot,
rape, and murder. When a natural or man made disaster occurs, these individuals are
like predatory wild animals preying on those unable to defend themselves. Women are
often targets for rape, and the elderly are robbed. A well armed and trained citizenry
is less likely to be subjected to thugs who take advantage of disasters while government
initially wrings its hands in helplessness and confusion. If your guns are taken by the
despots in government, you can easily become a victim of those with criminal intent.
Cindy
Sheehan Delivers Katrina Aid To Moslem Radical. As discussed elsewhere,
Cindy Sheehan's compadres, the august Veterans For Peace, have been helping themselves
to Red Cross food and other supplies. So the supplies they brag about having delivered
to former Black Panther and now Moslem radical, Malik Rahim, were almost certainly pilfered
from the Red Cross.
Police
Find Relief Supplies in City Official's Home. Police found cases of food, clothing
and tools intended for hurricane victims at the home of the chief administrative officer for a
New Orleans suburb, authorities said Wednesday [9/21/2005].
Mississippi
governor says crime is up since the storms. Crime has increased dramatically in Gulf Coast
counties hard hit by Hurricane Katrina, in part due to outsiders looking to prey on the weak, Gov. Haley
Barbour said Tuesday [3/14/2006]. Construction scams, assaults, and drug and alcohol crimes are among
offenses occurring more frequently, law officers in the region said.
New Orleans Officers Cleared of
Looting. Four New Orleans police officers have been cleared of allegations that they looted
a Wal-Mart store after Hurricane Katrina, but each was suspended 10 days for not stopping civilians
from ransacking the store, the Police Department said.
5 Killed in Latest New
Orleans Shootings. The shootings were the latest round of killings as the city struggles to rein
in drug- and gang-related violence that has accompanied the recovery from Hurricane Katrina.
Shootings tarnishing New
Orleans' image. City leaders and people who make a living in the tourism industry fear that New
Orleans is building a national reputation that could harm its fragile recovery.
[No, the latest developments merely confirm the reputation New Orleans already had.]
The Great Society
Crashes and Burns. At the Superdome and New Orleans Convention Center,
we saw the failure of 40 years of the Great Society. No sooner had Katrina
passed by and the 17th Street levee broke than hundreds of young men who should
have taken charge in helping the aged, the sick and the women with babies to safety
took to the streets to shoot, loot and rape.
Nursing Home Staff
Leaves 30 People to Die. State Rep. Nita Hutter said 30 people died at a
flooded-out nursing home in Chalmette, just outside New Orleans. She said the staff
left the elderly residents behind in their beds.
St. Rita's Crime: Wrong
People. It's time for the blame game and the losers are two owners of St. Rita's
Nursing Home. Yes, the Mangano's. They have not been all over the tube as so many of our
elected officials so you might not know the name. Mable Mangano, 62, and her husband Salvador
Mangano Sr., 56, co-owners of St. Rita's Nursing Home, face 34 counts of negligent homicide, said
Attorney General Charles Foti.
The latest: More bodies are found daily, weeks
after search called off. Nearly two months after Hurricane Katrina struck and more than
two weeks after the official quest for bodies was abandoned, corpses of 9th Ward residents are being
found every day.
Despite Mardi Gras, New
Orleans is Struggling. Hurricane Katrina created an estimated 60.3 million cubic
yards of debris in Louisiana, 25 times as much as the ruins of the World Trade Center and enough
to fill the Superdome more than 13 times. Of that, only 32 million cubic yards — a
bit more than half — has been removed. Meanwhile, there are just under 2,000 people listed
as missing.
Section 3: News media pessimism, misinformation, bias and opportunism
Second anniversary recap... The
media's Katrina malpractice: Few of us can forget the reports from two years ago. CNN warned
that there were "bands of rapists, going block to block." Snipers were reportedly shooting at medical
personnel. Bodies at the Superdome, we were told, were stacked like cordwood. The Washington Post
proclaimed in a banner headline that New Orleans was a "A City of Despair and Lawlessness," insisting in an
editorial that "looters and carjackers, some of them armed, have run rampant."
Katrina: The aftermath of
2005's Hurricane Katrina was horrific, with a staggering loss of life and property. Some of the early
reports from New Orleans however, particularly those immediately following the storm, were later found to be
inaccurate or completely untrue. Some of the news reports of rape and murder in the Superdome and the
Convention Center were later found to be based on unsubstantiated rumors and civil rights leader Randall
Robinson's claim that "black hurricane victims in New Orleans have begun eating corpses to survive" was later
retracted. In addition to those inaccurate stories, some of the reporting of the racial makeup of the
victims of the hurricane were misrepresented.
Media
Dishonesty in New Orleans. The hard truth is that New Orleans has always been crime-infested.
There is no connection between Hurricane Katrina and crime. That's just part of a touchy-feely narrative
that is supposed to make us think that anything wrong with New Orleans has to be as a result of Hurricane
Katrina. It's an extension of the bald-faced lie that the Bush Administration purposefully ignored the
plight of the city after the floodwaters hit. If anything, many of the criminals who called New Orleans
home have invaded other parts of the country after evacuating and are now perpetrating felonies on unsuspecting
victims in Texas, Florida, Oklahoma, and all over the United States.
Debunking Some Katrina
Myths: A prediction: Some of the stories being circulated about rape, murder, and havoc in
New Orleans are not going to hold up under scrutiny. This is not to minimize the countless horrors that
have occurred in Katrina's aftermath. But the truth of what happened is awful enough without having to
embellish it.
Katrina:
Forget everything you thought you knew. If you've only gotten your news about Hurricane Katrina
from the mainstream media, everything you think you know about Katrina flooding New Orleans is probably wrong.
On this first anniversary of the tragedy, while the networks congratulate themselves on their often wildly
inaccurate reporting in the days following Katrina, there's a far more important story not being told.
How
reporters create Grinches. Crying and yelling made for better ratings than calm
assessments of damage. Network stars wanted to display what passed as compassion. … Politics
also played a role, with liberals framing the story as one of rich people not caring about poor
people and whites not caring about blacks.
Media blindside in
hindsight. What do you "know" about the recent hurricanes that struck the Gulf Coast and how
did you come by the information? If your knowledge was acquired from watching the broadcast and cable
networks, as it was for most people, you "know" only what their reporters and anchors told you. … Weeks
after these "facts" have been deeply implanted in the public consciousness, we are now learning that much of
what we "know" is incorrect.
Hurricane of media
mendacity. The facts they put in front of us were wrong, and they didn't talk truth
to power. They talked to goofs in power, like New Orleans' Mayor Ray Nagin and Police Chief
Eddie Compass, and uncritically fell for every nutso yarn they were peddled. The media swallowed
more bilge than if they'd been lying down with their mouths open as the levee collapsed. Ten
thousand dead. Widespread rape and murder. A 7-year-old gang-raped and then
throat-slashed. It was great stuff — and none of it happened. No gang-raped
7-year-olds. None.
All the
rumors fit to print. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita packed a wallop — not just with
weather that ravaged a region, but also in lessons of hysteria and the power of fear. Now
that winds have calmed and the hot air of punditry has found new objects of bloviation, we learn
that much of what we thought we knew was wrong. That sentence has a familiar, and
unwelcome, ring to it.
Media, blushing, takes a second
look at Katrina. The general in charge of Louisiana's hurricane relief has admonished
reporters not to confuse questions with answers, and urged them to give the public facts — not
exaggerations and rumors that several media organizations now say corrupted coverage of Hurricane Katrina.
Gale-force
exaggeration, Katrina's other consequence. In the last month or so, we've heard a lot
of self-congratulation from the press about what a great job they've been doing. … We now know,
thanks to valuable post-mortems by the Los Angeles Times and the New Orleans Times-Picayune, that
a great deal of the "great reporting" was in fact great rumor mongering.
Swept away
with the wind. Everything is blown out of proportion, every ambiguity
resolved in President Bush's disfavor, and every possible malevolent motive is attributed
to him. The most innocuous events are treated as scandals. Hyperbole
rules. Panic prevails. Conspiracy fantasies abound. Sober, balanced
analysis is absent.
Katrina – What
Went Right: Largely invisible to the media's radar, a broad-based rescue effort by
federal, state and local first responders pulled 25,000 to 50,000 people from harm's way in
floodwaters in the city. Ironically, FEMA's role, for good or ill, was essentially
non-existent, as was the Governor's and the Mayor's. An ad-hoc distributed network
responded on its own. Big Government didn't work. Odds and ends of little
government did.
All in the Family. It
took the media a while to acknowledge that most of Katrina's victims were black. Apparently, it
will take longer to mention that most of the victims were women and children.
Media
misleads with Katrina message. This delicious moment, which came
after the other broadcast networks had quickly returned to regularly scheduled
programs, speaks volumes about the media coverage of Katrina and the edited
messages they have tried to shove down the public's throat. Those messages
are: White Republicans hate blacks; big business and big Republican government
are evil and won't help blacks; Democrats are good and are the only ones who care
for black people.
AP Corrected Mistake on Bush Responsibility
Claim, CBS Didn't. Following President Bush's Tuesday [9/13/2005] news conference
in which he took responsibility for federal mistakes following the Hurricane Katrina disaster,
some news organizations left out the word federal in their reportage, creating the possible
impression that Bush had shouldered blame for state and local failures.
You Can't Talk
About That. All of us were still haunted by what we'd been watching on our
TV screens through Katrina Week: the spectacle of several thousand black Americans openly,
nakedly displaying their helpless, hopeless, clueless, angry dependency. It was there, it
was real, though we're stuffing it down the memory hole now as fast as we can work our
fingers.
Hurricane
economics: When it comes to evaluating the economic impact of hurricane
Katrina, two errors are constantly repeated. The first is the free-lunch
fallacy — believing that federally financed reconstruction and relief
can be a net "stimulus" to the national economy. The second is the price-index
blunder — confusing a one-time spike in the relative price of energy with
a broad and lasting change in the rate of inflation.
Media Windbags Follow
Hurricane. There has been a spate of stories about how our media
have used Hurricane Katrina to suddenly return to their watchdog role toward
government. This is being depicted as an extremely positive development. But
many media performances, especially on cable news, constituted shameless grandstanding
or Bush-bashing.
Blaming
Bush. About the connection between hurricanes and global warming, [Stanley] Goldenberg
[meteorologist at the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA] concludes, "I speak for many hurricane
climate researchers in saying such claims are nonsense."
Katrina
spawned plague of misinformation. One thing can be said for certain about what it
was like in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina roared through: Much of what was reported
as fact by government officials and the media during the chaotic first week afterward turned out
to be fiction. Myths and misinformation multiplied, from how many people died to what
conditions were really like inside the Louisiana Superdome.
When Will
the Mainstream Media Apologize for Katrina Goofs? Remember all those politicians and
reporters warning folks to avoid at all costs the deadly mixture of chemicals, gasoline, human and
animal waste and decaying bodies floating through New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina? Guess
what? Katrina left town Aug. 30, but it was not until Oct. 13 that The Washington Post
got around to reporting that the "toxic soup" never showed up.
Katrina
and the Price of Panic: In the wake of Hurricane Katrina two sports were all the rage in
New Orleans. One was the blame game, attributing all local and state incompetence to the
feds. The other was inventing and spreading stories of murder and mayhem — killings,
rapes, firing at rescuers, bodies stacked like cordwood. But the accounts turned out to be grim
fairy tales.
Worst
coverage of the year: Reviewing the falsehoods, myths and misrepresentations
spun by the press, politicians and pundits following Hurricane Katrina, one is reminded of
Nora Ephron's bon mot: "No matter how cynical I get, I can't seem to keep up."
Bob Schieffer Plays Patty-Cake With Ray Nagin
on "Face the Nation". There was nothing, first and foremost on the journalist's
plate, about Nagin's wild exaggerations about a death toll of 10,000 and the rampant rape and
murder he and his top cops gave to the national media. There was no question asking Nagin
about his utter failure to order a mandatory evacuation until the last minute. There was
no question asking Nagin about his failure to evacuate citizens by city bus or Amtrak
train. There was no question asking Nagin about race-baiting and finger-pointing
at FEMA and Team Bush.
To ABC's Surprise, Katrina Victims Praise Bush and
Blame Nagin. ABC News producers probably didn't
hear what they expected when they sent Dean Reynolds to the Houston Astrodome's parking lot to get
reaction to President Bush's speech from black evacuees from New Orleans. Instead of denouncing
Bush and blaming him for their plight, they praised Bush and blamed local officials.
Media Use Katrina to Lobby for
Higher Taxes. As quickly as the water started rising in New Orleans, America's media began
blaming Hurricane Katrina-related damages on the president's 2001 and 2003 economic stimulus
packages. The overriding theme the first week after Katrina hit was that the levees of
Louisiana failed due to a lack of federal funding stemming from "tax cuts for the rich."
Most media got
Katrina wrong. Did New Orleans blacks die at a higher rate than whites in the wake of
Hurricane Katrina? On the evidence so far, the answer is no. Of the 1,100 bodies recovered
in Louisiana after Katrina, 836 were found in New Orleans, and the state has released data on 568 of
those that were judged to be storm-related.
The Environmental Disaster
That Wasn't. Of all the energy-related bad news brought on by hurricanes Katrina and Rita,
one piece of good news has gone largely unnoticed. The two powerful storms did not cause any major
offshore oil spills despite dealing a knockout punch to America's biggest oil producing region.
Media Contradicts
Media Contradicting Media. I was working on a project today when I inadvertently heard a portion
of a "supposed" news report. It was a bash Bush for the Katrina event. Excuse me? Since
when did the President gain authority and control over mother nature? And since when has it
been his responsibility to govern the State of Louisiana and New Orleans in particular?
Katrina:
What the Media Missed. Do you remember the dramatic TV footage of National Guard helicopters
landing at the Superdome as soon as Katrina passed, dropping off tens of thousands saved from certain
death? The corpsmen running with stretchers, in an echo of M*A*S*H, carrying the survivors to
ambulances and the medical center? About how the operation, which also included the Coast Guard,
regular military units, and local first responders, continued for more than a week? Me neither.
Except that it did happen, and got at best an occasional, parenthetical mention in the national media.
Media Myths of Katrina: It
turns out that much of what we know to be true isn't exactly true. Popular Mechanics magazine has
published a much overlooked
story, The
Lessons of Katrina, in its March issue. It got some attention at the time in the blogs and on
certain online publications. But very little, if any, attention has been devoted to it in the mainstream media.
Police Chief Says He Exaggerated Post-Katrina
Crime. The New Orleans police chief during Hurricane Katrina, Eddie Compass, says he
unnecessarily "heightened people's fears" by repeating unconfirmed reports of out-of-control crime
in the city during the aftermath of the storm, adding to the confusion caused by the disaster and
potentially hampering rescue efforts.
Forget
everything you thought you knew about Katrina. If you've only gotten your news about Hurricane
Katrina from the mainstream media, everything you think you know about Katrina flooding New Orleans is probably
wrong. On this first anniversary of the tragedy, while the networks congratulate themselves on their
often wildly inaccurate reporting in the days following Katrina, there's a far more important story not
being told.
Toss
out the New Orleans "toxic soup" myth. "Alarmists ... announced we were killing Lake
Pontchartrain by pumping the floodwaters back into the lake. Extensive testing shows no
adverse effect on the lake's ecosystem. Water quality is good and bacteria levels are
below the most stringent water quality standards established for swimming."
New Orleans cleared of 'toxic soup'
scenario. New Orleans' waters and soils seem to have survived the ravages of Hurricane Katrina
without being contaminated by any toxic sludge. The massive hurricane flooded the city in August last
year with waters that were expected to be contaminated by sewage, petrol, and various household and industrial
pollutants, from asbestos to pesticides. But just how toxic those floodwaters were, and what mess
they might leave behind, wasn't known.
Section 3a: Opportunism on the part of celebrities and politicians
Political,
Media Liberals Are Either Lying or Ignorant. It's no wonder that Democratic leaders Howard
Dean, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi can't win national elections. They can't even tell the difference
between the words "topped" and "breached."
Hollywood
to the rescue. The downpour of Hurricane Katrina brought with it a scourge of
sickness, homelessness, injury and death. But the aftermath of Katrina has wrought its own
special plague — a celebrity hurricane of opportunism and bad taste.
Katrina: Gratifying
and disturbing reactions. In the immediate aftermath of Katrina's wrath, two almost
contradictory reactions have emerged. One is the reaction of most American people and is
overwhelmingly positive and constructive. The other — that of the media and certain
politicians — is negative and destructive.
Hurricanes, hatred
and hypocrisy: Extremists in today's Democrat Party are so full of anger that even
the horrific devastation and human suffering brought on by Hurricane Katrina have failed to produce
any discernible detente in their torrent of viscera.
The
Over-Responders: Rep. Bob Wexler set the stage just minutes after
the first levee burst by accusing President Bush of gross incompetence. Rep. Harold
Ford followed shortly after with an artless race-card play, wondering aloud why so many
people of color had been stranded.
Mary
Landrieu Found Buses When She Needed Them. Mary Landrieu was trailing badly in her race
with Woody Jenkins for the Senate, and they found out that the inner city of New Orleans had not voted
something to the tune of 186,000 people. They pulled out all the stops. ...and they found
busses. They found countless buses to get people to the polls. Now, the only reason I bring
this up is to, once again, confirm that when they really want to move people, they can do it
in New Orleans.
Why
Hollywood Loves Katrina: Hollywood's usual attitude toward mass human
suffering is exploitative, rather than compassionate. This trend will only be
magnified in 2006 when a series of studio films about the 9-11 attacks finally hit
the big screen. And this, really, is why Hollywood's recent bellyaching over
President Bush's hurricane relief effort rings so false.
Hurricanes Aren't
Caused by Global Warming but Political Hot Air Is. The deadly winds from
Katrina had barely died down when the ill winds from the political left began to blow
with Gale force. In a disgusting display of political opportunism, political hacks
from Robert Kennedy, Jr., … to failed Presidential Candidate John Kerry, have all piped
up in recent days, linking the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina to the Bush
administration's global warming policies.
Flashback: Florida
Billboards Blame Bush for Hurricanes. Because President George W. Bush has "ignored the
threat of global warming," Floridians can expect to be hit by increasingly destructive hurricanes, a
new billboard campaign says. The billboards, going up along Interstate 4 between Tampa and
Orlando — a week before the presidential election — read, "Global warming
equals worse hurricanes. George Bush just doesn't get it."
Post-Katrina
Liberalism: The idea that Katrina would change the only thing that
matters — thinking — perished even more quickly, at about
the time Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu, a suitable symbol of congressional narcissism,
dramatized the severity of the tragedy by taking a television interviewer on a helicopter
flight over ... her destroyed beach house.
Assigning
blame: Perhaps [the US Congress] might ask itself who created the Department of
Homeland Security in the first place. The congressional response to all crises is the
same — rearrange the bureaucratic boxes, but be sure to add one extra layer. The
last four years of DHS have been spent principally on bureaucratic reorganization (and real estate)
instead of, say, a workable plan for as predictable a disaster as a Gulf Coast hurricane.
Hillary's
hurricane rule. Sen. Hillary Clinton sometimes talks as if she wants oil and
gas to be cheap and abundant, but she never stops working to make them expensive and scarce.
Bastardizing
the Courts. What on earth does [Hurricane] Katrina have to do with the role of the
courts in general, with the Supreme Court in particular, or with Judge
Roberts' judicial philosophy and fitness to serve on the Court? Absolutely
nothing, of course, but that's not how Leahy and Kennedy see it.
Eye
of the press storm. Remember all of this about Hurricane Katrina? The
destruction was due to global warming. And it was made worse by too many
troops off in Iraq. Endemic racism and neglected environmental legislation
were as toxic as flood. Military assets were unused due to incompetence or
heartlessness. Neglect of the victims was an indictment of a crass and
uncaring society. … The media coverage turned out almost as disturbing as natural calamity
and initial bureaucratic ineptness — in both the falsehood it spread and
the truth it ignored.
Louisiana's Electoral
Disaster. New Orleans is suffering a new disaster: democracy. Gov. Kathleen
Blanco has postponed city elections indefinitely, thereby extending the term of the city's mayor
by executive decree, and flawed voting mechanics threaten to bar tens of thousands of people
from future elections, say Rob Richie and Ryan O'Donnell (Washington Post).
Judge
rules against out-of-state polling. A federal judge refused Friday to order Louisiana
officials to provide out-of-state satellite polling places for displaced voters or to take other steps
that could have forced a delay of the New Orleans primary election scheduled for April 22.
Hurricane relief ... in Nevada? Pork Alert: Katrina Anniversary
Edition. Time and time again members of Congress have ignored the budget requests of the
Army Corps of Engineers and siphoned money away from high priority projects. One year after the
hurricanes, members are once again using the Army Corps as their own personal pork-barrel. … As
usual, powerful appropriators were able to grab the lion's share of the pork,
including $33.2 million for eight projects in [Nevada], including: $25 million
for rural Nevada; $1.5 million for Truckee Meadows; and $725,000 for Tahoe Regional Planning.
Waste in the
Eye of the Storm. While Hurricanes Katrina and Rita proved to be the worst and costliest natural
disasters in our nation's history, the waste and fraud uncovered after last year's storms has been a disaster
all in itself. The list of government waste in the response and recovery after Hurricanes Katrina and
Rita, at all levels, reads like a rap sheet — $200 champagne, months at a Hawaiian resort, five
season tickets to the New Orleans Saints, hundred of trailers sitting unoccupied. And the
list goes on — all at taxpayer expense.
Brown: Politics Played a Role in
Katrina. Political storm clouds gathered again over the federal government's response to
Hurricane Katrina as former Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown said party politics
influenced decisions on whether to take federal control of Louisiana and other areas affected by the hurricane.
Katrina
'Ethnic Cleansing' Remarks Causes Stir. A Democrat's allegation that the Bush administration
engaged in a calculated policy of ethnic cleansing after Hurricane Katrina to make Louisiana "whiter" has
sparked outrage. Addressing a group of bloggers at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., last week, Rep.
Barney Frank (D-Mass.) renewed his criticism of the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina,
particularly the housing crisis that ensued after the hurricane hit.
Section 3b: Drummed-up racial strife
Racist
liberal media. Instead of tamping down hysteria, network talkers regularly stirred
up racial anger.
Perceptions
of race and the face of poverty. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, we are
reminded that black America and white America see things differently. We saw this
vividly during O.J. Simpson's criminal trial. When his not-guilty verdict was
delivered, black Americans cheered while whites — dumbfounded and nearly
unanimous in their belief that Simpson was guilty — scratched their
heads. How could we see things so differently? Now we see this
racial schism again in the aftermath of Katrina.
Hurricane
exposes issues of class, race. Although TV correspondents covering Hurricane Katrina avoid
commenting on the obvious, their cameras hold back nothing. The people who couldn't or wouldn't leave
New Orleans are overwhelmingly poor and black. As are the looters. The images may surprise
people whose visual pictures of the city are of tipsy partiers on Bourbon Street or plump chefs in
French Quarter restaurants. But the vicious winds of Katrina exposed a far different reality.
Stop
claiming racism in the Gulf response. A letter to the editor of the Oregonian,
in Portland, said of Katrina: "I am deeply disturbed and angered by the number of reports
claiming racism has something to do with the delay in the relief effort. These claims are
unsubstantiated and a complete lie. To even suggest that our government would allow people
to die simply because of the color of their skin is despicable…. In a time of
national crisis, another media-driven race war is the last thing this country needs."
Cheering
On Racial Division: Stirring up racial anger was a common theme by week's end. On
NBC, anchor Brian Williams lectured that the hurricane would "necessitate a national discussion on
race, on oil, politics, class, infrastructure, the environment, and more." On ABC, Ted Koppel
began by orating that New Orleans is 67 percent black, and "The slow response to the victims
of Hurricane Katrina has led to questions about race, poverty, and a seemingly indifferent
government." On CNN, Wolf Blitzer, who raised eyebrows by calling the hurricane
victims "so poor and so black," prodded Rep. Elijah Cummings not once, but twice, to find
racism in the slow response.
Hurricane
coverage veers off course. You'd think the media would have learned their
lesson. After Katrina, the press corps waited a full two days after the storm hit
before it was able to report that one of America's poorest and blackest cities was full
of poor and black people.
Katrina,
the race card, and the welfare state. Maybe someday one of the news anchors
will ask one of the so-called civil rights leaders the following question: Doesn't the
demand for race-based preferences, set-asides, private sector anti-discrimination laws, social
welfare programs, and social "safety net" programs all conspire to say one
thing — "You are not responsible"?
In
Katrina I Didn't See Racism, I Saw Brotherhood. In New Orleans, beginning Tuesday
morning, August 30, I saw men in helicopters risking their lives to save stranded flood victims
from rooftops. The rescuers were White, the stranded Black. I saw Caucasians navigating
their small, private boats in violent, swirling, toxic floodwaters to find fellow citizens trapped
in their houses. Those they saved were Black. I saw Brotherhood. New York
Congressman Charlie Rangel saw Racism.
Farrakhan
on New Orleans: The white man did it. For many people, past discrimination
means present and future discrimination. End of discussion. Never mind the growing
black economy, an all-time high percentage of black homeownership, and a "black GDP" that would
make black America the 16th wealthiest country in the world. … Instead of spending energy
buying into Farrakhan's latest lunatic theory, why not re-examine present policies
that — either through intent or effect — hurt blacks?
Do blacks
believe levee was blown? Was the levee break that precipitated the flooding
of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina the result of some government conspiracy against
blacks? … Last week, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan sparked controversy by
spreading racist conspiracy theories. "I heard from a very reliable source who
saw a 25-foot deep crater under the levee breach," Farrakhan said. "It may have
been blown up to destroy the black part of town and keep the white part dry."
Editor's Note:
This may be the first time since 9/11/2001 that Louis Farrakhan has been quoted in
the news media. He has kept an extremely low profile since people of
his "religion of peace" unloaded on America four years ago.
Bush
Team Conspired Against Blacks, Activists Charge. Several black civil rights leaders are
accusing the federal government of conspiring against poor African Americans in the aftermath of the
flooding in New Orleans. But one of those hurling the charges, comedian and political activist Dick
Gregory, on Friday [9/9/2005] refused to say what, if anything, he has personally contributed
to the relief effort.
Fighting the Man and
Black Dogma. Lost … on these folks are a few little, insignificant
facts. For one thing, four of the five parishes hardest hit in New Orleans were
predominantly white. For another, most of the rescuers were white and, lastly, the
lion's share of the millions of dollars that are pouring in from all points has been
doled out by white hands.
New Orleans Nagin Showing
Crumbs On Racism. The Mayor who has been color blind for three years is
doing terrible post-Katrina damage. As he said on Larry King on Wednesday [9/14/2005] referring
to the Superdome during Katrina, things ratcheted to a living hell. Guess what? What
the good honorable mayor is doing is creating a living hell for those who want him to take specific
responsibility for what he is now doing to the City of New Orleans — blaming race and
not class — especially at a time when he should be blaming himself for certain pre and post
Katrina events over the past few weeks of this hurricane nuclear horror.
Shameless
race-baiters take advantage of New Orleans' tragedy. This notion that race
was a factor in the relief effort is not only dishonest, it is reprehensible. The reason
why most of those stranded in the Superdome were black is because two-thirds of the city's
residents are black. In fact, much of the city's local representatives are black. New
Orleans has a black city Council. They have black elected representatives. They have
black judges. All of whom failed to send any buses to evacuate New Orleans' residents before
the hurricane hit.
Shame, Shame,
Know Your Name — Black Racists in New Orleans. Only a fool or a liar fears
the truth — those who are justifying and excusing the behavior of the blacks are both
of these, with a little hypocrisy and cowardice thrown in the mix for good measure. The
truth of this situation, no matter how many fits you throw, is that the rape, looting, murder, and
mayhem is being committed overwhelmingly by blacks. By blacks. By blacks.
Get it? By blacks who are often deliberately targeting whites. Do you think
they'll be charged under Hate Crime Statutes? I don't think so.
The
recurring politics of race exploitation. Virtually the entire liberal establishment
embraced the perverse notion that inadequacies in the federal response to Hurricane Katrina were
attributable to an underlying racism infecting the Bush administration. The allegedly
disproportionate impact of the disaster on blacks, they argued, could be chalked up to Republican
racism.
Nagin: N.O. to be "chocolate"
again. Mayor Ray Nagin told a crowd gathered at City Hall for a Martin Luther King Day
march that New Orleans will be "chocolate" again. "We ask black people … It's time for
us to come together. It's time for us to rebuild New Orleans — the one that should be a
chocolate New Orleans," Nagin said Monday [1/16/2006].
[Imagine the furor if a Republican had said that, substituting "white" for "black".]
God and
New Orleans. Why is it that New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin … can get away with
such blatantly racist claptrap? Most major newspapers buried the mayor's comments, if they
reported them at all, and those national news programs that played them did so largely without
commentary. I can't imagine a white mayor praising the racial purity of a white community
getting similar treatment.
The Madness
of C. Ray. It's impossible to gauge the extent of the damage that Mayor Ray Nagin's "chocolate
city" and "God's punishing America for invading Iraq" remarks inflicted on New Orleans last
week. Suffice it to say that we survived Katrina, but I'm not sure if we can survive Nagin.
Nagin apologizes
for 'chocolate' city comments. Mayor Ray Nagin on Tuesday [1/17/2006] apologized for urging
residents to rebuild a "chocolate New Orleans" and saying, "You can't have New Orleans no other way."
Race and Accountability:
Unfortunately, the ideologies of the American left are still alive among many groups of blacks today. How
else can you explain the recent happenings in New Orleans? Nearly a year ago, America witnessed one of
the largest and longest "race card" situations in history, played alongside a national disaster in New
Orleans. Overnight, Hurricane Katrina became a national household word describing death, poverty,
displacement of people, and destruction of property.
Nagin blames delays on
racism, red tape. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin on Friday [8/18/2006] blamed racism and government
bureaucracy for hamstringing his city's ability to weather Hurricane Katrina and recover from the disaster that
struck the Gulf Coast nearly a year ago.
The
Importance Of Being Ernesto: After Hurricane Katrina, Democrats exploited a natural disaster that
devastated predominantly white and black areas in both Louisiana and Mississippi as an example of Bush
administration racism. National Committee Chairman Howard Dean marked the disaster's anniversary by
charging that "Katrina ended any effective ability by Republicans to appeal to African-Americans."
Katrina,
lies and videotape. Spike Lee took his cameras and crew to New Orleans to film a documentary
about Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. The four-hour production, which aired on HBO, is,
unfortunately, about as destructive as was the disaster it depicts. At a time when we need light and
understanding, Lee has delivered darkness, anger and hatred. Those who will be hurt the most by the
distorted and untruthful picture that Lee has concocted are the poor blacks he purports to want to help.
Black Activist Criticizes Nagin's
Convoluted Comments to Senate Committee. Calling his testimony a "smokescreen" to cover up his
own failings at the outset of the Hurricane Katrina crisis, members of the black leadership network
Project 21 are criticizing the racially-charged rhetoric of New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin before
the Senate Homeland and Government Affairs Committee yesterday [1/30/2007].
