Introduction:

This page is a spin-off from the collection of news about Hurricane Katrina.

Other cities with similar problems:

Baltimore
Chicago
Detroit
Philadelphia
Dallas
Memphis
Cincinnati
New York City
St. Louis
New Orleans
Denver
Cleveland
Atlanta
Indianapolis
Washington, DC
Ferguson, Missouri

Shooting at Mardi Gras Parade in Louisiana leaves 5 wounded, suspect in custody police say.  Five people were wounded Sunday in Franklinton, Louisiana, after a shooting at a Mardi Gras parade, according to police.  A suspect, 18-year-old Jamerian Anders, was arrested on five counts of attempted first-degree murder following the shooting, Franklinton Police said in a press release.  Police said additional arrests are likely.  The incident happened at about 7 p.m. near the parade route.  Police described it as a gang-related shooting.

New Orleans [is] Collapsing Under the Weight of Wokeness.  A terrorist attack at 3:15 a.m. on New Year's Day exposed to the world the deadly consequences of the dysfunctional leadership of New Orleans.  The Crescent City has been controlled by the Democratic Party since 1872, when the last Republican Mayor left office.  The current Democrat Mayor, LaToya Cantrell, is thankfully in the final year of her second term in office.  She has been enmeshed in controversy from the beginning of her tenure as Mayor.  While she survived a recall effort, she is currently embroiled in a federal investigation involving local businessmen, who allegedly gave her gifts in exchange for the firing of a city employee.  She is also implicated in the indictment of her former bodyguard, Jeffrey Vappie, a former policeman, who has been charged with wire fraud and making false statements.  The indictment alleges that Cantrell began having an affair with Vappie, then married, while he was "on duty" guarding her.  It is also alleged that Cantrell and Vappie spent personal time together at the city owned Upper Pontalba apartment, located adjacent to Jackson Square in the French Quarter.  In previous mayoral administrations, this apartment was strictly used to accommodate dignitaries visiting New Orleans.  The historic apartment was reportedly utilized by Cantrell as a personal residence.  It took a prolonged battle with the New Orleans City Council for Cantrell to finally surrender the keys to the apartment.  When Cantrell was not spending time with her bodyguard and living in the city-owned apartment, she was enjoying lavish international trips, often accompanied by Officer Vappie.  In fact, they travelled together on 14 out-of-town trips, often to far-flung destinations such as Qatar, France, United Arab Emirates, Kenya and South Korea.

New Orleans police superintendent career:  Fired from Oakland, teaches FBI group's diversity course.  New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick, who has been leading the city's response to the New Year's Day terrorist attack, was previously fired from her police chief position in Oakland, Calif., and teaches an FBI group's leadership training program course on diversity.  Kirkpatrick has more than 35 years of policing experience, according to her bio, with 20 years as a police chief.  Her record also includes hitting two pedestrians while driving in New Orleans' French Quarter in August and creating a gun-free zone around a police station there, by placing a vocational-technical school inside it.  The New Orleans police superintendent has been the main spokesperson for local law enforcement following what she called a terrorist attack on the city on Wednesday.

Left Wants Another American Revolution.  [Scroll down]  Their real issue is that the Constitution, and especially its first 10 amendments — referred to as the Bill of Rights — places restrictions on the government in favor of the people, rather than the government restricting the people.  They want to restrict what cars we drive, where and how we live, what we eat, how we prepare our meals and wash the dishes.  Progressives even want to restrict our speech — what we may and may not say — despite the clear language of the First Amendment, and deny us the private ownership of firearms, despite the clear language of the Second Amendment.  And to make sure we're living by their rules and restrictions, they want to be able to search our homes without a warrant, in clear violation of the Fourth Amendment.  Police and national guardsmen did exactly that after Hurricane Katrina.  They marched en masse, going door-to-door with weapons drawn in Democratic Party-run New Orleans and Democratic Party-run Louisiana, to seize privately-owned firearms.  Citizens were kept in handcuffs outside their homes while their property was being searched.  This video is frightening — you can't believe this happened in America.  Afterwards the National Rifle Association had to actually sue the city and the state on behalf of the gun owners for the return of their legally held weapons.  That's exactly how fragile our rights are, even with the Constitution in place.

A Sure Shot at Fixing Crime.  Crime is killing New Orleans.  A Bravo TV show cut the number of episodes produced in the city because its crew repeatedly fell victim to carjackers.  A large beer maker, Faubourg Brewery, couldn't find anyone to work the night shift because potential workers feared the high-crime area where the brewery was located.  Because of this, the company moved all of its production out of state, costing dozens of jobs.  An offshore oil service company, Harvey Gulf International Marine, almost moved its HQ from the city to the suburbs because too many of its employees were victimized.  There is no way of counting the thousands of individual economic decisions driven by fear of crime that don't make the news.  How many people have moved out of the city because of this fear?  How many small businesses closed or moved because of this fear?  How many tourists avoided spending their vacation dollars there because of this fear?

'The rats are eating our marijuana; they're all high': Infested New Orleans police evidence room becoming rodent cafeteria.  New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick put the infestation problem plaguing the department in stark terms — particularly in regard to the evidence room that she said has become a kind of smorgasbord for rodents.  "The rats are eating our marijuana," Kirkpatrick said Monday at a City Council Criminal Justice Committee meeting, NOLA.com reported.  "They're all high."  Besides consuming narcotics in the department's evidence room, she also said rodents have been scattering feces across desks, the outlet noted.  Cockroaches also are making the rounds, NOLA said.  "It is not just at police headquarters.  It is all the districts.  The uncleanliness is off the charts," Kirkpatrick also said, according to the outlet.  "The janitorial cleaning [team] deserves an award trying to clean what is uncleanable."

NOLA police chief pushes for 'gun-free zones' in response to state's new constitutional carry bill.  Anne Kirkpatrick, the police chief for the city of New Orleans, "is one of the most tenured police executives in the country," which is just code for:  seasoned bureaucrat hired by city officials.  And you know what that means?  There's a very simple and easy solution to this problem. [...] Kirkpatrick needs to go, and I have a very simple and easy solution for that — as I mentioned above, she's a police chief, and unlike a duly-elected sheriff of Orleans Parish, Kirkpatrick was hired not by the people, but by city officials.  She is a bureaucrat and not a civil servant, despite the shiny law enforcement badge she wears.  As a side note, this is why I'm a firm believer in a return to the constitutional values of this nation and the elimination of bureaucratic police departments, with all law enforcement responsibilities being restored to their original owners and delegated once again, exclusively, to the elected sheriffs and their chosen deputies — all good cops in the the bureaucracies of city forces ought to make a swift exit and serve their communities in the best way possible.

A teen is found guilty of second-degree murder in a New Orleans carjacking that horrified the city.  A now 18-year-old teenager faces life behind bars after being found guilty of second-degree murder in last year's heinous carjacking and dragging death of a 73-year-old woman in New Orleans.  Jurors deliberated for about four hours Monday before finding the teenager guilty as charged, news outlets reported.  He faces a mandatory term of life in prison with a chance at parole after 25 years, The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate reported.  Sentencing is set for Jan. 12.

The Editor says...
You might think the defendant, who is 18, doesn't have a name, because his name isn't mentioned in the article above.  The article below fills in that gap.

New Orleans Carjacker Found Guilty of Murdering Elderly Woman, Faces Life in Prison.  A violent carjacker has been found guilty of murder over the brutal slaying of an elderly woman in 2022.  An elderly resident of New Orleans, Louisiana named Linda Frickey was brutally and gruesomely murdered in a horrific carjacking incident in March last year.  The carjacking was carried out by a violent gang.  The ringleader of the gang, the fourth of four charged assailants, faced trial this week.  On Monday, that trial concluded with the jury rendering a unanimous verdict that 18-year-old John Honore was guilty of second-degree murder, local NBC affiliate WDSU reported.

NOLA mayor files lawsuit to block recall going to a vote.  New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell, a Democrat, filed two lawsuits Tuesday aimed at scuttling a legal settlement that reduced the number of signatures needed for her recall.  The alleged "backroom deal" makes it easier for recall supporters to force an election on her recall.  Cantrell claims that Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin, a Republican, made a deal with recall organizers.  One lawsuit was filed in Orleans Parish Civil District Court.  The lawsuit calls the deal illegal.  The 10% reduction in the number of signatures needed to force a vote on the mayor's recall was called arbitrary.  The second lawsuit was filed against Ardoin in Baton Rouge's 19th Judicial District Court.  Mayor Cantrell was joined by Lower 9th Ward activist Willie Calhoun in the second lawsuit.  Recall organizers Belden Batiste and Eileen Carter, both Democrats, are also named in the second lawsuit.

The results of the NOLA mayor recall petition are in.  What happened?  New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell can rest easy for now.  The recall petition that was organized in an attempt to oust her from office failed because it did not collect enough signatures.  The total number of signatures on the petition fell short of the necessary number needed to proceed with the recall process.  If enough signatures had been collected and verified, the voters would have had the opportunity to go to the polls and vote on the matter.  Alas, it was not meant to be.

NOLA mayor finds herself in hot water... again.  This woman is a magnet for corruption investigations.  Let's do a quick tally.  New Orleans was named as the city with the highest per capita murder rate.  Then, due to a shortage of police, [Mayor LaToya] Cantrell spit balled that she may have to cancel Mardi Gras over safety and security concerns.  That didn't go over well.  So, almost immediately, she walked that threat back.  Next thing you know, there's a recall petition being organized.  There was a big hullabaloo over the fact that the mayor flies first class to go overseas and yet her staff and security fly coach.  So, there's an investigation into this and calls for her to reimburse the city for the ticket price differences ($30,000).  She refuses to do so, saying she has to fly first class because it's really dangerous for black women to travel, or something.  And, finally, there is an investigation being launched into a non-profit Cantrell founded.  She's racking up quite a list of no-nos.  Oh yeah, I almost forgot — she attended the trial of a juvenile in a mentorship program who was charged with carjacking.  She supported him over the victim.

New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell vows to return $30,000 she blew on first-class flights after saying it was 'unsafe' for a black woman to fly economy.  LaToya Cantrell, the controversial Democratic mayor of New Orleans, has said she will repay the city for $30,000 she claimed in city cash for first class flights after living rent-free in a government apartment just three miles from her house.  The mayor was forced to pay for the flights after a city attorney was brought in who determined that Cantrell, as a city employee, was obliged by policy to seek the cheapest fares or reimburse the city for deluxe expenses.  Cantrell spent around $10,000 on her own flat bed seat and blew a similar amount on a first-class return to France earlier this year — while her aides traveled in coach.

Is the Mayor of New Orleans about to be fired?  If you listen to the recall organizers, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell is about to lose her job.  The No LaToya recall campaign was launched in August 2022.  The group met the February 22 deadline that required them to hand in around 50,000 signatures.  They say they exceeded that number.  The campaign's chairman, Belden Baptiste and Eileen Carter, vice chair, say they are ready to take back their city.

New Orleans overtakes St. Louis to become the Murder Capital of America: Homicide rate up 141% from 2019.  New Orleans overtook St. Louis as the US murder capital in the first half of this year, as the city struggles with its lowest police staffing level in modern history amid a crisis of officer morale.  In the first six months of 2022, New Orleans recorded 41 murders per 100,000 population, a higher homicide rate than any other US city, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from the Major Cities Chiefs Association.  By comparison, the first-half murder rate per 100,000 was 11.5 in Chicago, 4.8 in Los Angeles and 2.4 in New York City.

A mayoral recall is murder-capital New Orleans' last chance.  People who want cities to succeed post-COVID should be heartened by the news out of New Orleans:  a spunky, no-holds-barred movement to boot the second-term mayor, LaToya Cantrell, out of office.  The "No LaToya" recall campaign may be New Orleans' last chance to avoid reaching a tipping point.  It's still missing 15% of its tourist jobs, and crime is rampant: A random attacker stabbed two people Saturday in the French Quarter.  The United States has had a bad time since 2020, but New Orleans has really had a bad time.  This year, 203 people have been murdered, a third above last year and more than double the pre-COVID level.  The killings bring the murder rate to an unheard-of high.  In a city with a population shy of 400,000, the current pace is an annual murder rate of 70 per 100,000, multiple times the national average.  Most of the victims are black men and boys.

The city with the highest per capita murder rate may not be the one you think.  What is the first city that comes to mind when you think of the city with the highest murder rate?  For me, it's Chicago.  The cities that frequently make the news due to high murder rates and other violent crimes usually include Chicago, New York City, Baltimore, and Philadelphia.  However, a compilation of police data for the month of June from cities with populations of more than 200,000 was put together and the top 31 American cities with the highest murder rates might surprise you.  AH Analytics co-founder Jeff Asher listed the top cities with the highest murder rates per capita (or 100,000 residents) and the city that tops that list is New Orleans.

Recall petition filed against Mayor of New Orleans.  The Louisiana Secretary of State confirmed that a recall petition was officially filed on Friday against New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell.  The city is experiencing a spike in violent crime and Mayor Cantrell's time in office has been filled with controversy.  A petition was filed by a community activist and perpetual candidate for office, and the mayor's former social media manager.  The activist ran a long-shot campaign against Cantrell in November and now he's filing the recall petition with Eileen Carter, a staffer who helped manage the Cantrell administration's social media presence for three years.  She is also the sister of former Louisiana state Senator Karen Carter Peterson.  Peterson recently resigned from office and is under federal investigation for illegally using the state Democrat Party's funds (she is the former state chair of the state party).

One dead, two injured after gunfire breaks out after Morris Jeff graduation.  A woman was killed and two others were injured after gunfire broke out Tuesday following the Morris Jeff Community School graduation on the Xavier University campus, New Orleans police said.  The bloodshed comes just two weeks after four people were injured in an eerily similar shooting outside of the commencement ceremonies for Hammond High School.  That graduation was also held at a college campus:  Southeastern Louisiana University.  At a press conference, NOPD Deputy Superintendent Christopher Goodly said two women began fighting in the parking lot of Xavier's convocation center after elated graduates and their loved ones spilled out of the 10 a.m. ceremony.

New Orleans Descends Into Chaos As Cars Do Donuts Around Massive Crowds While Degenerates Hop Up And Down On Cop Cars.  City officials are pledging a "more bold and brazen" approach to illegal stunt driving incidents around New Orleans.  The New Orleans Police Department held a press conference Monday [6/6/2022] after several videos were widely circulated on social media Sun., June 5.  In the videos, drivers are seen burning out, spinning cars in donuts, driving at high rates of speed, and performing other maneuvers at different intersections across the city.  [Video clip]

As Homicides Skyrocket In New Orleans, Young Teens Openly Walk Around With Their Illegal Firearms.  As crime run rampant in New Orleans, young street thugs walk around with their semi-automatics, none of which are purchased legally.  Want to bet these guys will laugh at any new gun control bill to come out of the uni-party in DC?  Homicides in Democrat-run New Orleans are up nearly 50 percent over year-to-date numbers from 2021.  The Metro Crime Commission's Weekly Orleans Crime Bulletin shows that as of June 5, 2022, homicides in New Orleans were up 46 percent over where they were in 2021 and 89 percent over where they were in 2020.  [Video clip]

[Black] Suspect arrested in cold-case killing of [white] Tulane graduate.  A convicted felon has been charged in the cold-case slaying of a St. Louis man who was killed five years ago while visiting New Orleans to scout wedding venues, authorities said.  Ernest Weatherspoon, 34, was indicted this week on murder charges in the May 2016 death of Thomas Rolfes, a 25-year-old Tulane University student who was shot and killed during an armed robbery.  They've been through a lot," District Attorney Jason Williams said Thursday of Rolfes' anguished relatives, NOLA.com reported.  "They're still going through a lot."  Weatherspoon was also charged with armed robbery, Williams told reporters.

Democratic mayor holds maskless party weeks after reinstating indoor mandate.  Weeks after reinstating New Orleans's indoor mask mandate for public buildings and schools, the city's Democratic mayor, LaToya Cantrell, was seen partying maskless Friday at an indoor Mardi Gras event.  Over 100 videos showing Cantrell's party at Gallier Hall could be seen online before they were taken down, according to a report.

NOLA grandmother, 73, is killed in brutal carjacking.  A 73-year-old grandmother was killed during a brutal carjacking Monday in New Orleans, with a group of teenage attackers dragging her down the street for nearly a block while the woman screamed at them to let her go.  Witnesses also described the gruesome scene after both her arm and her clothes were ripped off during the incident when they got stuck in the car's seat belt.

The Editor says...
Apparently it goes without saying that the suspects are black and the elderly victim was white, because the Daily Mail didn't mention that detail.

Audubon Zoo, aquarium cancel pro-police promotion, citing 'divisive' potential.  After drawing up plans to offer discounts to anyone wearing blue to show support for the New Orleans Police Department, the Audubon Nature Institute announced Tuesday it was canceling the six-day promotion, citing feedback that "this event could be unintentionally divisive."  A statement from a spokesperson for the Audubon Zoo and Audubon Aquarium of the Americas said the purpose of hosting Blue at the Zoo from May 11 to May 16, alongside the New Orleans Police & Justice Foundation, was to "promote and foster positive interactive experiences" with the Police Department.  But an announcement last week of the promotion as well as a planned news conference triggered "feedback ... from members of our community and from persons outside of our community" which convinced Audubon to scrap the idea, the statement said.

With Hurricane Ida, New Orleans and Louisiana Seem to Have Learned Nothing in 16 Years.  Hurricane Ida will go down as one of the most powerful storms to make landfall in the United States.  On the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the city of New Orleans was struck by this storm and left broken yet again. [...] Right now, the city is completely without power.  Cell service is sporadic at best in and around New Orleans.  Transmission towers fell into the Mississippi River.  Many people are stuck where they are with no power and no phones.  They are completely in the dark, and it's not because they chose to stay.  For the vast majority, many simply couldn't leave.  What's worse is that the city will be relying on not just the state but the federal government for assistance to get through.  But three hours to its west is Lake Charles, which still has gotten none of the federal assistance it was promised by the government after Hurricane Laura.  It, too, remains in tatters and struggling to recover a year later.  The federal government is being run by the Biden administration, who over the last two weeks has proven it is incapable of even formulating a plan, much less following through on it.

Apocalypse More Or Less Now.  Mardi Gras fell on Feb. 25 of this year.  New Orleans has since seen a significant spike in Wuhan virus cases; the city proper has well more than 3,000 known cases and an official death count of 125 as of this writing.  It's said the nightly gatherings of revelers during that carnival season were a super-spreader event turning the Big Easy into the Big Sneezy. [...] The first known coronavirus case in Louisiana came on March 9, two weeks after Mardi Gras.  Anecdotally, people in that city had been complaining of a respiratory "crud" with symptoms quite similar to coronavirus for two or three months before then.  Nobody identified it; all they knew was they were testing negative for the flu.  To shut Mardi Gras down in mid-February would have been more or less unthinkable.  New Orleans doesn't have much industry left.  Idiot politicians like [Mayor LaToya] Cantrell, and the stupid policies they bring with them, have run off everything but tourism and hospitality.  Take Mardi Gras away from that city and it's a cross between Detroit and Mogadishu.

After Katrina.  Hurricane Katrina smashed into New Orleans 15 years ago last Saturday, destroying levees and floodwalls and submerging entire neighborhoods, from the poorer Lower Ninth Ward to the wealthier Lakeview district, for weeks.  By some measures, New Orleans has made a remarkable recovery since the storm.  Jobs, income, and educational attainment are up, and even the city's population loss, though substantial, is not as dramatic as many, at the time, feared would happen.  Strikingly, though, the city's black population is down sharply.

The Editor says...
That's because a great number of them went to Texas and stayed there.  The Katrina People are all over Dallas.

A New Orleans police officer groomed and raped a 14-year-old girl he was assigned to take to a rape kit exam, a lawsuit alleges.  The mother of a 14-year-old girl has sued the city of New Orleans and a former police officer, alleging the officer groomed and raped the girl after he was assigned to take her to a children's hospital for a rape kit exam last year.  The lawsuit, filed in federal court this week, said the police department dispatched Officer Rodney Vicknair to transport the girl to hospital on Memorial Day weekend of 2020.  But while Vicknair and the girl sat in the waiting area, he showed the girl pictures on his phone of what he claimed was his 16-year-old daughter posing in bikinis and lingerie, according to the lawsuit.  The lewd photos were just the beginning of a series of increasingly inappropriate encounters that would devolve into sexual assault and rape, the lawsuit alleged.

1 in 7 New Orleans Adults is the Target of an Arrest Warrant.  So how do they intend to fix this situation?  Some simply want to act like those warrants were never issued and wipe them from the books.

There is 1 arrest warrant for every 7 residents in city of New Orleans.  According to city data — there are more than 55,000 outstanding warrants in Municipal and Traffic Court in New Orleans.  If you do the math, that means there is 1 outstanding warrant for every 7 people in the city of New Orleans.  "The main reason so many people are in this cycle is because they are poor and they could not get off work and did not have child care, they couldn't afford that fine on the front end," City Councilman Jason Williams said.

New Orleans Needs a Better Way to Do Mardi Gras.  Standing in line at the hardware store on the edge of the French Quarter one December Monday, I overheard the cashier talking to a regular customer about manhole covers that had exploded just before dawn that morning a couple of blocks away.  The metal discs had burst into buildings and crashed into the underside of a car, which in turn caught fire.  Power outages and evacuations had ensued.  This was just the latest addition to a cluster of troubling events.  In the previous few days, a turbine powering the low-lying city's storm-drainage system had also exploded, unrelated water-main ruptures had flooded neighborhoods on opposite sides of town, and a cyberattack had crippled City Hall.  Not to mention the usual spate of shootings that punctuate the daily news in New Orleans.

The Editor says...
The condition of the city's infrastructure has no connection to Mardi Gras, unless the city's numerous problems are evidence of the wrath of God, brought on by the annual celebration of drunkenness, gluttony, fornication, and exhibitionism.  (Fortunately for all of us, that's not the way God acts, since approximately April of 33 A.D.)  A more likely explanation for the city's problems is that it's just another big city that has been ruled by Democrats for decades, and Democrats aren't good at managing big cities (e.g., Chicago, Baltimore, San Francisco).  A third explanation might be that the entire city of New Orleans is below sea level, which explains the widespread problems with underground utilities, which are even further below sea level.  A fourth possible explanation is global warming, so let's go with that.

The $14 billion system of levees and floodwalls built after Hurricane Katrina is already sinking.  The $14 billion system of levees and floodwalls built around New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina is already sinking just 11 months after it was completed, experts have said.  The Army Corps of Engineers said in an impact study notice earlier this month that the flood control system could loose its intended ability protect against a 100-year flood as soon as 2023.

Future of New Orleans in peril as $14B flood protection starts sinking.  The $14 billion upgrade to New Orleans' system of levees to fortify the city is sinking, according to engineering experts.  After investing an amount of money that is five times greater than the gross domestic product of the island country of Aruba, the Army Corp of Engineers said levees may not be adequate enough to protect New Orleans and the surrounding region from major flooding associated with a 100-year storm.

New Orleans faces a never-before-seen problem with Tropical Storm Barry.  Tropical Storm Barry presents New Orleans with an unprecedented problem, according to the National Weather Service.  The Mississippi River, which is usually at 6 to 8 feet in midsummer in the Big Easy, is now at 16 feet, owing to record flooding that's taken place this year all along the waterway.  In the meantime, Barry is spinning away in the Gulf of Mexico, threatening a storm surge of 2 to 3 feet at the mouth of the river, said Jeffrey Graschel, a hydrologist with the weather service's Lower Mississippi River Forecast Center in Slidell, Louisiana.

The overwrought coverage of the Hurricane Katrina aftermath in New Orleans.  If you will recall, that disaster was caused by outside forces — the hurricane — but was compounded by corrupt local politicians' mismanagement of the levees and the gormless responses by then-mayor Ray Nagin (now serving a ten-year sentence in Texarkana prison camp for corruption) and Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, since retired from public office.  Recall if you will the hyperbolic (and false) accounts of cannibalism in the Superdome, babies dying there, bodies stacked up in the Convention Center, the slanders that levees were deliberately blown up to destroy the black part of the city, and that the federal government — that is, George W. Bush — was slow to respond.

New Orleans looks underground as parts of city slowly sink.  "I know where I live," said Keith Daggett.  Daggett's home sits by the London Avenue Canal.  The floodwall along the canal breached during Hurricane Katrina more than 13 years ago.  An outdoor exhibition now stands at the site of the devastation, marking the flooding caused by the failures of the canal.  "Yes, there is a flood risk here," said Daggett, who recently moved to the neighborhood.

Brad Pitt's New Orleans housing charity is in trouble.  Brad Pitt is caught in a hurricane of litigation over defective houses his Make It Right foundation built in New Orleans and he can't find a graceful exit from the storm.  Make It Right appears to be barely functioning.  The charity reportedly stopped building new houses in 2016.  Its website hasn't been updated since December 2015, and social-media accounts went idle in mid-2017.  Like most nonprofit orgs, Make It Right has publicly posted its tax filings and financial statements for several years, but the last available filing is for the 2014 tax year.

The Moral Of New Orleans:  Americans Can't Live With These People.  The murder rate for New Orleans is up 70% compared to last year and police say it is driven partially by the heroin epidemic (fueled by Mexican drug traffickers). Police are also having a harder time solving murders, with less than a third being cleared, a phenomenon NOPD Superintendent Michael Harrison blamed on victims not cooperating with police.  This is a not uncommon phenomenon in America's post-Western cities, where police are perceived as the enemy even by the non-white populations merrily slaughtered by their own co-ethnics.  So, naturally, the city fathers of New Orleans think the real threat to the "community" is some statues.

New Orleans Is Not New Orleans Anymore.  The video of Robert E. Lee being taken off his pedestal — literally — was stunning enough, since that 1884 statue by Alexander Doyle is sculpted in a Florentine neoclassical style that just doesn't exist anymore.  Even more shocking is where it happened.  New Orleans?  This really went down in the Southern city most associated with tolerance, community, art, hospitality, jazz, street celebrations, and a melting pot of black, white, mulatto, Creole, French, Spanish, Cajun, Native American, German, and Haitian peoples sprouting from various historical periods and cultural traditions?  The city of laissez les bon temps rouler really singled out particular monuments from the city's multilayered history and targeted them for iconic destruction, like the Taliban?  But it gets stranger.  The idol smashers also took down the equestrian statue of General Beauregard, their own Creole hero, a man whose first language was French and who, in keeping with the loyalty that Louisiana inspires, chose to remain in the hostile Reconstruction South after the war, working for universal black voting rights, rather than accept lucrative offers to lead foreign armies.

George W. Bush strikes again:
New Orleans floods as downpour overwhelms city pump stations.  Parts of New Orleans flooded after a heavy weekend rainfall that officials said overwhelmed the city's pump stations.

Crews wearing masks, bulletproof vests and helmets remove statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis from New Orleans.  Workers wearing face masks, bulletproof vests and helmets Thursday morning [5/11/2017] removed the statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis in New Orleans, the second of four Confederate monuments slated for removal in a contentious, months-long process that has sparked protests on both sides.

The Battle of New Orleans.  Last Sunday in New Orleans a group of patriots surrounded Robert E. Lee and beat back the Northerners who were trying to take him down.  They weren't just defending a statue.  They were defending American history.  The left's version of events is, progressives tried to remove four monuments to racism but only managed to get one because Nazis got in the way.  It was a Civil War over the Civil War.  This all started when Hillary lost and NOLA mayor Mitch Landrieu realized he wasn't going to have a job in her administration.  He needed to make a move that garnered national attention so he decided to lick some Northern ass and pretend the most important statues in his town were promoting slavery.  Louisianans don't believe this, and I suspect he doesn't either.

New Orleans Removes Jefferson Davis Monument; Gens. Beauregard, Lee Next.  New Orleans city workers removed a statue of former Confederate President Jefferson Davis in the pre-dawn hours on May 11, as protesters both for and against the removal of the 106-year-old monument stood nearby.

New Orleans Confederate monuments can come down, court rules.  New Orleans officials can begin the process of removing the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee at Lee Circle and three other monuments at the center of a long-running, city-led effort, a federal appeals court ruled Monday (March 6).  In the ruling, the three-judge panel with the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals found that the groups trying to block the removal of the monuments, Monumental Task Committee and the Louisiana Landmarks Society, failed to present a case that contained a legal argument that showed the monuments should stay up.  The court wrote that the groups relied on two legal claims, "both of which wholly lack legal viability or support."

New Orleans takes down Confederate monuments under cover of darkness.  In New Orleans in the small hours of the morning on Monday, workers wearing bulletproof vests and scarves that obscured their faces removed the first of four prominent Confederate monuments.  The precautions were taken in response to what police said were death threats, as the Big Easy became the latest southern institution to sever itself from symbols viewed by many as a representation racism and white supremacy.

The Bayou Taliban.  The city of New Orleans [...] toppled a 106-year-old statue of former resident Jefferson Davis this week as part of an ongoing campaign to bowdlerize history through the destruction of Confederate monuments.  The government vandals arrived in the dead of night.  They wore masks.  They blacked out the names on company trucks.  The only thing more Orwellian than the removal of the statue and other memorials is the rationalization behind the suppression.

Jefferson Davis statue in New Orleans removed early Thursday.  The Jefferson Davis statue in Mid-City was taken down early Thursday (May 11).  It's one of four monuments the New Orleans City Council declared nuisances in December 2015 and the second Mayor Mitch Landrieu has removed.

'Die Whites Die': Anti-Trump Rioters Vandalize NOLA Monuments.  What started as a protest against President-Elect Donald Trump soon turned to violent riots where one of New Orleans' most famous monuments was covered in graffiti and glass windows were shattered out of a nearby bank.  Hundreds showed up to denounce the election of Trump — but despite media reports of a peaceful gathering, the crowd grew increasingly hostile and violent, according to Breitbart Texas sources on the ground.  Students holding signs reading "End white supremacy" originally gathered on the steps of the Lee Circle monument before the demonstrations turned destructive.

'Die Whites Die': Rioters Spray-Paint Hate on Monument in New Orleans.  A search of Google news shows the lying press has ignored this story entirely.

1 killed, 9 injured in shooting in New Orleans' French Quarter.  One person was killed and nine others injured following a shooting early Sunday [11/27/2016] in New Orleans' famed French Quarter, officials said.  Police Superintendent Michael Harrison said during a news conference that officers responded about 1:30 a.m. Sunday to the shooting at the intersection of Iberville and Bourbon streets.  Harrison told reporters the shooting victims whose ages ranged from 20 to 37 included two females and eight males.  One male victim died at a hospital.

Ten shot, including one fatally, in New Orleans' French Quarter.  Two arrests have been made in connection with the shooting of 10 people — including one who died — in New Orleans' French Quarter early Sunday morning, police said.  "A total of 10 victims were shot in the incident on Bourbon Street.  One victim has died from his injuries," tweeted the New Orleans Police Department of the incident, which occurred around 1:30 a.m. on Bourbon Street.  Police said it is unclear what precipitated the incident.

New Orleans mayor apologizes for police killings after Katrina as he announces $13.3m settlements with victims' families.  The settlements resolve lawsuits over the deaths of three people who were killed in two separate police shootings after the 2005 hurricane and a fourth person who was fatally beaten by an officer shortly before the storm struck.

Obama, Democrats Ignore Own Disaster Response Advice; Could Cost Clinton Black Votes.  In 2005, erstwhile talented rapper Kanye West made the following claim at the end of an otherwise incoherent rant during a live fundraiser for the victims of Hurricane Katrina:  "George Bush doesn't care about black people".  Fast forward 11 years, when over three times as much rain has fallen on Louisiana, and you will see a news media doing their best to ignore the Obama administration's fecklessness during a similar time of strife, and a central government response that in and of itself has been underwhelming and deleterious to public confidence.

Flashback: Hillary Called W. 'Invisible' After Hurricane Katrina in 2007 Ad.  In a radio ad to African American voters in 2007, then-Senator Hillary Clinton called President George W. Bush "invisible" in his response to Hurricane Katrina.  Clinton blasted Bush in the ad, which she ran in South Carolina, portraying him as an absentee president who neglected Katrina victims, despite flying over the state when it was hit with the fatal natural disaster.  "And if you're stuck on a rooftop or stranded in the Superdome during a hurricane, you're invisible to this president even when you're on CNN," Clinton said in the ad.

New Orleans Changes Sanctuary City Policy After Crime Rates Increased.  New Orleans altered its sanctuary city policy last week in response to increasing crime rates and to further comply with federal law.  Under the new policy police can honor ICE detainer requests but are still prohibited from asking or checking a person's immigration status.  The new policy was announced during a congressional hearing by the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security.  During the hearing Louisiana Attorney General, Jeff Landry, said sanctuary city policies, "allow illegals to commit crimes, then roam free in our communities."

New Orleans is sinking faster than previously thought.  Scientist already knew that New Orleans was sinking.  But a new study finds that the Big Easy and its environs are losing elevation (a process called subsidence) at a faster rate than previously thought — some two inches per year near the Mississippi River and in industrial areas, and more than an inch-and-a-half in the Upper and Lower Ninth Ward, the Christian Science Monitor reports.  The Weather Channel sums up the issue:  "When a city already sits below sea level, any additional sinking is a cause for major concern."

This city is sinking twice as fast as New Orleans.  If New Orleans is sinking, Beijing might as well be in freefall.  A new study in the journal Remote Sensing finds depleted groundwater is causing the Chinese capital — the growing Chaoyang district, in particular — to sink as much as four inches per year; a recent study found New Orleans was sinking up to two inches per year.  As CNN reports, Beijing is the world's fifth most water-stressed city, using an estimated 3.5 billion liters per year — two-thirds of which comes from groundwater accumulated over millennia.  As the water is extracted, surrounding soil dries up and compacts.  Researchers, who used satellite imagery and GPS data, say Beijing has sunk about 14 inches in the last decade alone.

Flashback: Obama ripped Bush's 'unconscionable ineptitude' during Hurricane Katrina.  President Obama, under fire for golfing on posh Martha's Vineyard during a week of anguished cries for help from flooded Louisiana, ripped former President Bush 11 years ago when the Republican was seen as slow to react to Hurricane Katrina's crash into New Orleans.  Obama, who had just returned from New Orleans, preached on the Senate floor about Bush's poor reaction to similar cries for help during Katrina.

New Orleans to remove four prominent Confederate monuments after mayor approves bill.  Four prominent Confederate monuments in New Orleans were slated for removal Thursday [12/17/2015], ending a months-long process that began in the aftermath of the killing of nine African Methodist Church members in Charleston, S.C., by a white supremacist last June.  Mayor Mitch Landrieu, a Democrat, approved the removal by signing legislation only hours after the city council voted 6-1 in favor of the move.  In order for New Orleans to move forward, "we must reckon with our past," Landrieu told the council ahead of the vote.

Historic Preservationists Charge It's 'Obscene' to Pull Civil War Monuments Out of New Orleans.  New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu told the New Orleans City Council they should not have a 60-foot tall statue of General Robert E. Lee, pointing in the direction of the invading Union Army, as a symbol of their city in the 21st century.  "New Orleanians have the power and the right to correct historical wrongs and move the city forward," Landrieu said.  The council agreed.  But tens of thousands of city residents disagreed, and they have hired attorneys to stop the city's plan to take down Lee's statue and three other monuments to New Orleans' Civil War history.

Gunshot wound patients cost New Orleans hospital more than $40 million, TV station reports.  Gunshot wound patients cost New Orleans' University Hospital more than $40 million over the course of a six-year period, WDSU reports.  Dr. Russell Russo, who trained at University Hospital, researched data from 2007-20013 during which time the now-closed LSU Interim Hospital saw 3,500 gunshot wound patients.  It cost $73 million to treat them and the hospital took in just $31 million.  "A big part of it is, sadly, most of the time gunshot victims are uninsured," Russo said, according to the story.  "Some do get Medicaid after the fact, but only about 6 percent had some form of insurance when they came to the hospital."

Here's How Hurricane Katrina Changed Schools in New Orleans.  In the aftermath of the 2005 storm, instead of rebuilding a public school system where roughly two in every three schools were deemed "failing," the city transformed almost all of its traditionally run public schools into independently operated charter schools.  Charter schools changed the city's approach to education, eliminating attendance zones, removing unions and giving parents a real say where they send their kids to school.

New Orleans mayor avoids house arrest in firefighter pay squabble.  A last-minute action by the Louisiana Supreme Court saved New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu from being placed under weekend house arrest over a decades-old dispute with local firefighters who are owed $75 million in back wages.  The standoff arose from a decades-old dispute over back wages that went unaddressed by the city through several mayoral administrations.

New Orleans will get another $1.2 billion to repair roads, infrastructure.  The feds are kicking in $1.2 billion to help fix roadways and water, sewer and drainage pipes in New Orleans damaged by Hurricane Katrina.  The settlement brings the total to more than $2 billion for roads and subsurface infrastructure, Mayor Mitch Landrieu announced Thursday [12/10/2015].  The city has been in discussions with FEMA for the past year to determine the final estimate of costs for repairs.

Lee Circle no more: New Orleans to remove 4 Confederate statues.  Lee Circle will lose the statue of its namesake after the New Orleans City Council voted 6-1 Thursday (Dec. 17) to remove four monuments related to the Confederacy from their prominent perches around the city.  Besides Gen. Robert E. Lee, statues of Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard at the entrance of City Park and Confederate president Jefferson Davis in Mid-City and the obelisk dedicated to the Battle of Liberty Place at the foot of Iberville Street will all come down.

Stop Blaming Me for Hurricane Katrina.  Had I left the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the spring of 2005, my life would be very different today.  And I really wish, in retrospect, that I had. But after the 2004 hurricane season, when FEMA's excellent responses to hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne in Florida were widely praised, White House chief of staff Andy Card persuaded me to stay on as director through the 2005 hurricane season. [...] People are still saying now, as they said then, that what went wrong in New Orleans a decade ago was all my fault.  They were wrong then, and they are wrong now.

Ten years later, extent of Katrina fraud still unknown.  A decade after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast with historic ferocity, the federal government still doesn't know how many taxpayer dollars were lost to waste and fraud in the aftermath of the storm.  Botched contracts, rampant fraud and mismanaged projects squandered millions of dollars meant to help the victims of Katrina.  Politicians and business owners who skimmed off the top of the government's relief effort were later jailed, with some remaining behind bars to this day.

We Still Have No Idea Who 30 Katrina Victims Are.  Cleaning up after a massive hurricane is a difficult affair, but a decade after Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans and claimed what Live Science reports is an estimated 1,833 lives, 30 bodies have yet to be identified.  WWL-TV arrived at that number after making a public records request to the current coroner, who did not agree to be interviewed.  The data comes from autopsy reports — reports that contain only a few identifying details, like the location of the body and what it was clad in or carried.

In Katrina commemoration, Obama cites inequities 'brewing for decades'.  President Barack Obama returned Thursday [8/27/2015] to an outwardly thriving New Orleans to mark strides 10 years after Hurricane Katrina slammed into the city.  But underneath the visible recovery lie persistent racial and economic inequities that haven't receded since the storm — figures Obama said prevent New Orleans from declaring itself fully recovered a decade after Katrina.

Hurricane Katrina 10 years later.  Ten years ago the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina poured relentlessly into the Lower Ninth Ward, battering a struggling neighborhood of mostly poor black families.  It was, at the time, a New Orleans neighborhood of about 14,000 people.  Now fewer than 3,000 people live there — a decade after most of the homes were simply washed away.

The Justice Department's 'Grotesque' Misconduct against New Orleans Cops.  As we've previously observed, the Obama jihad to fundamentally transform America's police, spearheaded by the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, proceeds from the premise that police departments are corrupt institutions, beset by a culture of racism and law-breaking.  This week, after a federal appeals court's exposé of a breathtaking prosecutorial conspiracy to deprive indicted cops of their civil rights, and then cover it up, it is again time to ask:  Which is the corrupt institution beset by a culture of racism and law-breaking — the nation's police, or the Justice Department, which presumes to tame them?

Mississippi's often forgotten Katrina resurrection.  I didn't grow up in New Orleans.  My family didn't even live in Louisiana.  The home we had owned for more than 30 years was one of the 65,000 destroyed in Mississippi, leaving more than 100,000 people homeless.  Few realize that the massive hurricane veered east at the last minute and roared onshore at the Louisiana-Mississippi state line, making the Magnolia State ground zero.  The sustained 125-mph winds, 30-foot storm surge and hopscotching tornadoes reduced virtually every structure within a half-mile of the water to kindling.  Because Katrina was so vast, the destruction stretched the entire length of the more than 75-mile-long Mississippi Gulf Coast all the way into Alabama.

'Katrina: After the Flood' delivers a balanced and comprehensive account of all those who did wrong.  It has often been said that what happened to New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina was a man-made disaster.  A new book identifies former Mayor Ray Nagin as one of those men.  "Katrina: After the Flood" is as harrowing as it is riveting in recounting the tale of a city too broken to fight off its predatory would-be saviors.

New Trial Upheld for 5 Ex-Cops in Post-Katrina Shootings.  Five former New Orleans police officers deserve a new trial on charges connected to the deadly shootings of unarmed people amid the chaos that followed Hurricane Katrina, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday [8/18/2015], upholding a judge's 2013 decision.

Coverup: Federal Appeals Court Blasts DOJ Misconduct in Police Prosecution.  A federal appeals court has blasted misconduct by Justice Department lawyers in a civil rights prosecution against New Orleans police officers.  The case arose in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.  The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court's grant of a new trial because Justice Department lawyers — including those responsible for protecting the civil rights of the defendant police officers — engaged in an anonymous blogging campaign to taint the defendants during the trial.  The court noted that Justice Department lawyers stoked a "mob mentality" against police officers.

Obama to mark Katrina anniversary.  Ten years after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, President Obama will visit the city to celebrate its recovery.  Obama on Aug. 27 will meet with Mayor Mitch Landrieu (D), tour neighborhoods and meet with local residents.  He will deliver a speech hailing the city's rebuilding efforts and how they have helped spur economic innovation, the White House said.  The 2005 storm was the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history, flooding 80 percent of the city, killing more than 1,800 people and leaving a million people displaced.

New Orleans' major crime took a major jump in 2014, NOPD reports.  New Orleans last year saw double-digit percentage increases in reports of virtually every major crime category except murder, according to annual year-end statistics released by the NOPD late Friday [2/6/2015].  The biggest jumps were seen in the number of reported rapes and armed robberies, which shot up 39 percent and 37 percent, respectively, over the totals reported in 2013.  Reports of assaults (27 percent) and auto thefts (22 percent) also exceeded the previous year's counts by more than 20 percent.

ACLU: Banning Obscene Rap at Parade Is Racist.  In an attempt to keep the upcoming annual Mardi Gras parade family-friendly, the St. Martinville, LA police have asked participants to refrain from playing rap music with vulgar lyrics. [...] In an increasingly coarse culture created by the ACLU's destruction of minimal public decency standards, it would be no wonder that nothing could possibly be considered offensive, even at an event where hundreds of children are present.

Five Characters in Search of a Reason for New Orleans's Smoking Ban.  New Orleans's city council has unanimously approved a city-wide smoking ban in all bars and casinos, making it the latest big city to pass such a smoking ban without the courtesy of a popular vote.  The ban itself, like the others that came in cities before it, is purported to promote the public welfare.  Non-smokers, government officials argue, have the right to have their lungs be unafflicted by dangerous secondhand smoke if they choose to visit or work in any establishment.  In the case of New Orleans, teary-eyed city councilman James Gray II read aloud the names of people he knew who died of lung cancer, which "convinced" lawmakers to approve the smoking ban. [...] This is all about coerced behavior change and conformity to a government-approved lifestyle which is to be decided upon by our betters.

Landrieu Attacks Cassidy On Katrina Response. The Attack Has Backfired Horribly.  In the fight of her political life, Louisiana Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu took the gloves off on day 1 of the runoff election between her and Republican candidate Bill Cassidy.  Fewer than 24 hours later, the attack Landrieu launched went horribly wrong.

James O'Keefe Files Bar Complaints Against DOJ Lawyers.  James O'Keefe has filed an ethics complaint with various bar associations against Department of Justice Civil Rights attorney Karla Dobinski and three others arising out of a prosecution of police officers in New Orleans. [...] Dobinski was in charge of the taint team in the prosecution of New Orleans polices officers on civil rights charges in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.  The taint team was responsible for protecting the constitutional rights of the accused police officers.  It was responsible for ensuring that evidence obtained in the local internal affairs investigation did not make its way into the criminal prosecution.

Nearly $40 Million in FEMA Sandy Aid Possibly 'Improper or Fraudulent'.  Almost $40 million of the aid provided by FEMA to Hurricane Sandy may have been "improper or fraudulent," but that figure represents a huge improvement over the percentage of FEMA aid deemed questionable after Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita, according to a watchdog report released Friday [12/12/2014].  The Government Accountability Office (GAO), an independent federal agency that conducts audits for Congress, identified $39 million in possible improper payments, or 2.6 percent of the $1.6 billion disbursed by FEMA for Sandy relief via its Individuals and Households Program to 183,000 survivors.  Estimates of the questionable payments after Katrina and Rita, which hit the Gulf Coast in 2005, ranged from 10 to 22 percent of $7 billion in FEMA aid, or as much as $1.4 billion.

Ex-New Orleans cop who burned police shooting victim in post-Katrina chaos again gets 17 years.  For a second time, a former New Orleans police officer has been sentenced to more than 17 years in prison for burning the body of a man shot to death by another officer in the chaotic days following Hurricane Katrina.

Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin Arrives at Prison to Serve 10 Years.  Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin arrived at a federal prison in Texas on Monday [9/8/2014] to begin serving a 10-year sentence for corruption.  Nagin arrived at the Texarkana Federal Correction Institution at 11:45 a.m. Monday, according to NBC affiliate WDSU.  The facility is a minimum security prison reserved for non-violent white collar criminals.

Former New Orleans Mayor to start jail sentence for graft.  Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin reported to federal prison on Monday [9/8/2014] to begin serving a 10-year sentence for corruption committed during the years when the city was struggling to recover from the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina.

New Orleans' Post-Katrina Identity Crisis.  Hotel rooms are booked.  The convention center is packed.  Throngs of revelers spill out of jazz clubs on Frenchmen Street.  New Orleans is alive and thriving.  Or so it seems.  Nearly a decade has passed since Hurricane Katrina flooded the city and displaced more than 400,000 New Orleanians.  Billions of federal dollars have poured in to rebuild the Big Easy, along with thousands of volunteers and immigrant day laborers.

The Border Crisis Is Obama's Hurricane Katrina? Don't Be Ridiculous!  Some (including some Democrats) are saying that the crisis on the Southwestern border is President Obama's Hurricane Katrina.  But there are at least two fundamental differences between the illegal immigration fiasco and Katrina.  First, the response to Hurricane Katrina was actually the largest and the fastest response to any natural disaster in history, as Popular Mechanics, as I recall, later documented.  Second, President Bush didn't cause the hurricane.  The current disaster is entirely attributable to Barack Obama's willful refusal to enforce the immigration laws, in violation of his oath of office.  Is Obama's subversion of the nation's laws an impeachable offense?  I don't think there is any doubt about it.

Ray Nagin sentenced to 10 years in prison for public corruption.  Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was sentenced on Wednesday [7/9/2014] to 10 years in federal prison.  Nagin, 58, the two-term mayor who was the face of the city during Hurricane Katrina, joins a list of Louisiana elected officials convicted of misdeeds.  He is New Orleans' first mayor to be convicted and sent to prison for public corruption.  Nagin is set to report to prison on Sept. 8.  He could serve his term at a minimum security federal detention center in Oakdale, a city in central Louisiana.

Ray Nagin, corrupt ex-New Orleans mayor, sentenced to 10 years in federal prison.  A disgraced New Orleans politician is going from the Big Easy to the Big House.  Former Mayor Ray Nagin was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in federal prison after being convicted earlier this year on 20 counts of bribery, money laundering, fraud and tax evasion.  The two-term mayor, who left office in 2010, was sentenced on the lighter side, said U.S. District Judge Helen Berrigan.

Obama's Katrina? It's Actually Worse.  [C]ontrary to the White House interpretation of events, the injustice here is not to Obama but to Bush.  After all, despite some of the more extreme criticisms aimed at the 43rd president, nobody really believed Bush was capable of causing bad weather or had any impact on whether the levees were strong enough to prevent floods.  Katrina was a natural disaster and though the response to it was clearly inadequate, the failures were mostly the fault of the collapse of local and state authorities rather than federal bungling.  The push to blame Bush for it was largely the result of media distortions in which the perception of racism overwhelmed the facts.

Katrina victims live out Hollywood eco-agenda.  I stopped by the Lower Ninth Ward to see how rebuilding efforts are faring nearly nine years after Hurricane Katrina.  I visited one particular spot — the area where in August 2005 a flood wall holding the waters of the Industrial Canal broke, setting off a calamity that continues to this day.  The destruction was total; the rebuilding is at best partial.  The first thing one notices today is that solar energy panels seem to outnumber people in this particular stretch of the Lower Ninth.

Family calls 911 when intruder tries to enter home, waits hours before police show up.  [Terri] Bice believes it wasn't the door, but barking from Molly that stopped the intruder in their tracks.  So, she did what anyone would do.  Grabbed her phone and dialed 9-1-1.  She got no answer.  "We all know about first responders and what their importance is that's not going to happen if no one answers," said Bice.  She documented her calls for help:  two to 911; two to the NOPD's non-emergency line; and one to NOPD's Second District.  The final call was answered and Bice confirms an officer showed up two hours after the attempted home invasion.

New Orleans among riskiest real estate markets in country, Bloomberg reports.  New Orleans is among the most risky real estate markets in the country when looking at the biggest gains and losses homeowners have experienced over the past three decades, Bloomberg reported recently.

Ray Nagin, former New Orleans mayor, convicted in corruption trial.  Ray Nagin, the former two-term mayor of New Orleans indicted after he left office, was convicted Wednesday of 20 federal corruption charges, stemming from illegal dealings with city vendors dating back to 2004.  A jury delivered the verdict just before 1 p.m. after six hours of deliberations that followed a nine-day trial.

Ray Nagin can't shift blame for his corrupt actions anymore.  The picture painted by the government's 26 witnesses was of a man consumed with the need for other people to pay his bills — contractors, friends, employees and the public.  Mr. Nagin's defense was that everyone else was lying.  He claimed not to know that a city technology vendor and people seeking business or permits from the city were paying for flights on private jets and lavish vacations for him.  He said he only courted contractors to further the city's recovery.

From Katrina to the Clink: Ex New Orleans Mayor Heads to Prison.  After barely six hours of deliberation on Wednesday, a jury convicted former New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin on all but one of the 21-count indictment for bribery, money-laundering and failure to report income to the IRS.

The Man With No Party.  CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News and ABC World News broadcasts gave brief mention to the conviction of former New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin Wednesday [2/12/2014] on 20 federal counts, including bribery and conspiracy, but all three omitted the fact that he was a Democrat.  CBS anchor Scott Pelley and ABC fill-in anchor George Stephanopoulos referred to him as the "former mayor" while NBC's Brian Williams called him "controversial."

Ray Nagin found guilty on 20 of 21 counts.  Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, whose tenure in office included disastrous incompetence in handling Hurricane Katrina (for which the media blamed President George W. Bush), has been found guilty on 20 of 21 counts of corruption in a federal trial.  Conviction on all counts could have led to a 20 year jail sentence and $1 million in fines, but at this point it is unknown which count went not guilty and how that will affect the sentence.  Bill Chappell of NPR writes an article that does not identify Nagin's political party, which is the mainstream media convention when treating criminal Democrats: [...]

Judge allows subpoena for records from Times-Picayune.  A federal magistrate has allowed a defense attorney to subpoena records from a New Orleans news organization about comments anonymously posted on its website.

As Ray Nagin trial nears, judge finalizes jury questions.  Potential jurors screened for the scheduled Jan. 27 corruption trial of former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin will be asked about their understanding of the indictment, and their ability to presume Nagin innocent until proven guilty.  They will not, however, be asked a series of questions proposed by Nagin's defense attorney, Robert Jenkins, that inspired opposition among prosecutors, a federal judge has ruled.  Nagin is accused of accepting bribes and kickbacks during his tenure as mayor.

New Orleans ex-mayor Nagin led culture of corruption: prosecutors.  Prosecutors accused former New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin, who led the city during Hurricane Katrina, of running a graft scheme that netted him cash, vacation trips and granite supplies in exchange for contracts to help rebuild the city after the storm.

Ex-New Orleans mayor denies taking bribes after Hurricane Katrina.  Former New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin on Friday [2/7/2014] testified during his federal corruption trial that he had not traded city business for bribes after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city.  Nagin, 57, faces 21 charges of bribery, conspiracy, mail fraud and tax evasion related to contracts for millions of dollars in recovery work after the 2005 storm.

Judge Orders New Trial in Katrina Bridge Killings.  More than two years ago, federal prosecutors exchanged hugs and held hands with victims' relatives after a jury convicted five former New Orleans police officers of civil rights violations stemming from deadly shootings on a bridge after Hurricane Katrina.  But a judge threw out those convictions Tuesday [9/17/2013] and ordered a new trial for the officers, concluding the case had been tainted by "grotesque prosecutorial misconduct."

The NOPD is stuck with its $10-million-a-year babysitter.
It's not so easy to invite the feds out.  [Scroll down]  The feds should have stuck to what was their job — prosecuting past wrongdoing, including allegations of egregious brutality and killings after Katrina — and let the new mayor run a new police department.  Instead, the feds wrote their reports — and New Orleans's already sky-high murder rate kept rising.  In 2010, when Landrieu took office mid-year, the number of murders was 175.  In 2011, it was 199 — and in 2012, 193.

'Grotesque' DOJ Misconduct.  In a shocking case of "grotesque" misconduct by federal prosecutors, a federal judge in Louisiana has ordered a new trial for five New Orleans police officers convicted for a shooting on the Danziger Bridge on September 4, 2005 — in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina — and for a subsequent cover-up.  This is another black eye for the Holder Justice Department that the media have barely covered.  Participating in the misconduct that the judge said had created an "online 21st-century carnival atmosphere" was Karla Dobinski, a lawyer in the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department and the former deputy chief of the section.

New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward is still marked by Hurricane Katrina.  The Rev. Charles Duplessis navigated the new landscape of the Lower 9th Ward, crossing from newly paved streets to those still muddy and rutted as riverbeds.  He drove past a gleaming duplex designed by Frank Gehry and the skeletons of vacant homes, past a community garden and overgrown lots with "no dumping" signs, until he reached his destination:  Flood Street.  Here were more examples of the progress made after Hurricane Katrina — and the problems that remain.

2nd high-ranking Orleans sheriff's deputy pleads guilty in kickback scheme.  A second former high-ranking deputy in the Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office pleaded guilty Thursday morning [3/21/2013] in federal court to a charge of conspiracy to commit bribery for an alleged bid-rigging and kickback scheme that is expected to produce more charges in the coming weeks or months.

You said, "loan."  They heard, "gift."
House approves budget bill that can lead to forgiveness of Katrina disaster loans.  The House gave final congressional approval Thursday (March 21) to a spending bill that could lead to forgiveness of outstanding federal disaster loans from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita for Metro New Orleans school districts, government offices and law enforcement agencies.  Nearly, $500 million in loans are outstanding in Louisiana communities.  The bill passed 318-109.

Mother's Day second-line shooting on Frenchmen Street injures at least 12 people.  Immediately after the shooting police reported seeing three suspects running from the scene.

Louisiana tops the list for corruption in public office.  Louisiana has emerged as America's most corrupt state with the highest rate of convictions for people in public office, official figures revealed this week.  The Southern state came top for public corruption convictions with nine per 100,000 population.  Overall Louisiana convicted 403 public officials in the past ten years.  The data was compiled by the Justice Department, covering the period from 2002 until 2011.

Reversal of Danziger Bridge convictions a 'bitter pill' for Hurricane Katrina survivors.  For many metro area residents, the day when former police officers were convicted for their roles in gunning down unarmed people on the Danziger Bridge after Hurricane Katrina marked a cathartic moment.  On Tuesday [9/17/2013], however, a federal judge toppled those hard-won convictions, not citing faulty evidence, but because of the "grotesque" conduct of prosecutors who never even talked to the jury.

Report: Post-Katrina FEMA funds still unspent seven years later.
Another FEMA Misfire.  More than seven years after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city of New Orleans, federal grant funds marked for a nature center in the city have yet to be spent, leading federal watchdogs to recommend the revocation of some of those funds.  The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) awarded $12.3 million in disaster assistance funds to the Audubon Commission, a division of the city of New Orleans.  The commission administers a number of nature-related attractions in the city, including a zoo, an aquarium, and the Audubon Nature Center.

Ray Nagin pleads NOT guilty to claims he took bribes in wake of Katrina.  Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges he accepted more than $200,000 in bribes plus free trips and other gratuities in exchange for helping contractors secure millions of dollars in work for the city.

Former New Orleans Mayor Nagin, Arraigned on Bribery Charges, Not ID'd as a Democrat in 500-Word AP Story.  At the Associated Press yesterday [2/20/2013], Michael Kunzelman managed to write a 500-word story about the arraignment of former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin on bribery charges without once mentioning that Nagin is a Democrat.

Will Ray Nagin continue to resist the lure of a plea?  According to one of the counts in his indictment, Nagin liked to have [Mark] St. Pierre pick up his tab and swanked around exotic locales on his dollar with family in tow.  But that is just a little taste of the corruption depicted in a pretty intimidating indictment; Nagin was required to intone "not guilty" 21 times as the counts were read out at his arraignment last week.  A jury could acquit him on, say, 18 counts, thinking he should appreciate the favor, and he'd still be looking at a serious stretch.

Ex-New Orleans Mayor Nagin Indicted for Katrina Fraud.  I'm still waiting for the indictment of the media for its fraudulent Katrina reporting which depicted the hurricane aftermath as Mad Max on water, while refusing to report on the disastrous aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.  Mayor Ray "Chocolate City" Nagin attacked Bush for not doing enough for New Orleans, but he was doing alright for himself.

Ex-New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin charged with taking bribes, travel perks from city contractors.  On Friday [1/18/2013], the former mayor was indicted on charges he lined his pockets with bribe money, payoffs and gratuities while the chronically poor city struggled to recover from Hurricane Katrina's punishing blow.

Ray Nagin, former New Orleans mayor, charged with taking bribes while in office.  A federal grand jury charged former Mayor Ray Nagin Friday with 21 counts of corruption, including six counts of bribery, one count of conspiracy, one count of money laundering, nine counts of deprivation of honest services through wire fraud and four counts of filing false tax returns, alleging that while in office, Nagin took cash bribes and gifts from two city contractors.  Nagin's long-expected indictment arrived more than two and a half years after he left City Hall and relocated to the Dallas area.

Former Mayor of New Orleans Is Charged in Sweeping Corruption Case.  C. Ray Nagin, the former mayor of this city who fulminated against the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina but became for many a symbol of the shortcomings of government himself, was indicted by a federal grand jury on Friday [1/18/2013] on 21 counts including conspiracy, bribery and money laundering.

Ray Nagin indicted.  Former New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin, who rose to national prominence by blaming the Bush administration for his own incompetence in preparing for and handling Hurricane Katrina, has been indicted by a federal grand jury[.]  Gordon Russell of NOLA.com writes that the indictment contains...

The Real Super Bowl Winner.  The Super Bowl makes its tenth stop in New Orleans on Sunday, but only the first since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  For once the Big Easy has earned this excuse to party, coming back to life better than ever.  New Orleans has patented no magic sauce.  Katrina created the opening for different policies to turn around what was one of the worst-run and most politically calcified places in America.

Big Bill for Levee Upkeep Comes to New Orleans.  By the time the next hurricane season starts in June of 2013, the city will take control of much of a revamped protection system of gates, walls and armored levees that the Army Corps of Engineers has spent about $12 billion building.

Feds closing in on Ray Nagin.  A businessman pleaded guilty Wednesday [12/5/2012] to plotting to bribe an unidentified former New Orleans public official in a case that appears to be linked to a federal probe of former Mayor Ray Nagin.

Reid: Hurricane Katrina Was 'Nothing in Comparison' to Sandy.  Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic majority leader, said today on the Senate floor that Hurricane Katrina was "nothing in comparison" to Hurricane Sandy. [...] Nearly 1,500 died because of Katrina.  About 110 died because of Sandy.

Reid: Sandy Was Much Worse Than Katrina, You Know.  Whether he's publicly recapitulating the hallucinations of an imaginary friend, or wrongly assuring the public that various government programs are "fully funded," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tends to struggle with the truth.

Louisiana Sen. Vitter rips Reid for Katrina comments.  Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter ripped Majority Leader Harry Reid for suggesting the damage from Hurricane Katrina was "nothing" compared with the damage from Superstorm Sandy.

Update:
Reid says he misspoke in suggesting Hurricane Sandy was worse than Katrina.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Monday that he "simply misspoke," when he said Friday [1/4/2013] that Hurricane Katrina was "nothing in comparison to what happened to the people in New York and New Jersey" from Hurricane Sandy.