Common Cause Blog :: Katrina Five Months Later

Katrina Five Months Later

By Ed Davis
Posted on Sat Jan 28, 2006 at 10:15:47 AM EST

Lots of stuff today in the local paper (WP) today about the response to Katrina, five months after the storm and four months before the next hurricane season. Nice sidebar on the Prez' promises and reality - here's some of it:

Speech Text: I propose the creation of Worker Recovery Accounts to help those evacuees who need extra help finding work.
Status: Introduced in October, no action.

Speech Text: I also propose that Congress pass an Urban Homesteading Act.
Status: Introduced in December, no action.

Speech Text: The Army Corps of Engineers will work at their side to make the flood protection system stronger than it has ever been.
Status: The Army Corps of Engineers has completed 16 percent of planned New Orleans repairs before a June 1 hurricane season deadline. The White House and Congress have approved $2.9 billion to restore levees to pre-Katrina designed strength, add floodgates to navigational canals and fortify earthworks with concrete and stone. However, state and local officials want the flood control system improved to withstand the strongest, Category 5 storms, at a cost some estimate may top $30 billion. The Army Corps is conducting a two-year study, with an interim report due before the end of June.

And then there's Louisiana feeling abandoned - the Admin. even shot down a conservative Republican's plan for rebuilding. And in my old hometown paper (NYT), this about the Admin's. lack of full cooperation with Congressional investigations led by Republicans.

Finally, Laura Bush telling Louisianans "Government moves slowly"!!! Who's running the government, Laura?

Tags: Eye on the Gulf (all tags)

Katrina Five Months Later :: 5 Comments

Loisiana needs a new Democratic Senator

If you were wandering why things are still a mess in most areas of New Orleans and other coastal towns -
then all you had to do was watch how Senator Landreiu; ( whom said she was a Democrat but in reality acts like a Republican ) voted today for cloture/
Landreiu and 18 other Democrats just set the stage for the United States Highest Court to completely abolish most of what protects the majority of American Citizens by refusing to filibuster Judge Alito as she stood in Unity with her true Party, the Republicans.

Think this a joke - just wait a few months.

Ms. Landreiu should now do the Honorable Thing, and officially change her party affiliation to Republican and allow a viable Democrat to run for the 2006 Senate Seat.

by Russ Peppard Sr on Mon Jan 30, 2006 at 07:24:37 PM EST

talking about Dem that needs to join another party

January 27, 2006--Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman (D) faces grumbling and discontent from the left wing of his own party about his position on Iraq. Additionally, former Governor Lowell Weicker, has threatened to run as an Independent because of his unhappiness with Lieberman's position on Iraq. The overall level of grumbling is intense enough that Lieberman recently indicated he would run as an Independent if he does not win his party's nomination.

Despite all of that, Lieberman appears to be one of the nation's safest incumbents heading into Election 2006. A month ago, we found Lieberman leading Weicker by more than 20 percentage points in a head-to-head match-up.

This month, we offered survey respondents a choice between Lieberman, Weicker, and an unnamed Republican candidate. Lieberman still leads by more than 20 points, earning 47% of the vote. Weicker attracts 25% while the Republican trails badly at 16%.

Lieberman is viewed favorably by 71% of the state's voters, Weicker by 44%.

Taken from Rassumessen Reports on election 2006

by Nadersupporter on Tue Jan 31, 2006 at 04:16:44 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Political Patronage or Adequate Levees?

Greater New Orleans needs a unified levee board with a tight focus on levee protection and with the muscle to make sure the entire metro region gets the level of protection it deserves.

Creating a single, professional-minded levee board for all of Greater New Orleans would help protect the entire region. That body would have a narrowly targeted mission: to push for better flood protection for all residents. A unified board would be big enough to maintain more in-house technical expertise and have enough clout to demand a greater role in reviewing and improving plans developed by the corps.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco favors a single levee board with authority over both banks of the Mississippi River. Louisiana needs to push hard to make that happen during the special legislative session in February because lawmakers will face significant pressure to keep at least some parts of the West Bank out of a regional levee agency; giving in to that pressure would be a mistake.

A number of small levee agencies is convenient for elected officials who need a source for patronage contracts and positions for political appointees. But for citizens who want their homes to stay dry -- no matter where those homes are -- anything like the present setup is a bad deal.

Excerpted from editorial in The Times-Picayune 1/30/2006.

by dotwirth on Mon Jan 30, 2006 at 11:33:16 PM EST

White House & Dems Bait & Switch

Over 200,000 citizens are either living out of there cars or are being evicted from the allocated hotel rooms they had after their lives were erased. There are more than 2,500 people still missing.

I was there and am going back. Tens of thousands of American citizens are being systematically abandoned by our country. America is creating a holocaust-by-proxy, just walk on by, hide it, remove the focus, and ignore it. There's no money in it.

Radujko-Moore

by radmoore on Sun Mar 05, 2006 at 04:00:41 PM EST

What, Me Worry? Kitty Genovese Katrina Response

In 1964, 28-year-old Kitty Genovese was brutally stabbed while 38 New York City residents in nearby buildings watched and did nothing to save her. Social psychologists have used this horrible scenario as a metaphor for passive crowd behavior, i.e., the amazing situation where people will essentially ignore something awful happening to fellow human beings nearby.

New Orleans was the most racially impacted city in the united states in terms of the disparity of income, education, and privledge. We have been reassured that the absence of disaster relief has nothing to do with race or class. Also, pigs fly upside down. If this horror was happening in Beverly Hills, would the response be the same?

Disaster relief workers know. You can find thousands of statements about the lack of relief that's been offered. I was a disaster relief volunteer in the poorest region of Mississippi, written about in Newsweek: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9729481/site/newsweek/ . Katrina and Rita should not become America's next sociological version of Kitty Genovese.

Radujko-Moore

by radmoore on Sun Mar 05, 2006 at 04:06:56 PM EST

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Katrina Five Months Later

By Ed DavisPosted on Sat Jan 28, 2006 at 10:15:47 AM EST

By Ed Davis
Posted on Sat Jan 28, 2006 at 10:15:47 AM EST