Katrina news

Think Progress on Bush's broken promises to New Orleans--Bush Advisor To Reporter: Katrina “Has Fallen So Far Off The Radar Screen, You Can’t Find It.”

Steve Gilliard points to Gail Collins' editorial, "Death of an American City".

Democracy Now reminds us that the Katrina death toll remains unknown.

AP reports on post-Katrina forensics.

Newsday has a story on the efforts to reunite families after Katrina. Three months after the hurricane, over 1300 kids are still unaccounted for.

Chris Kromm reports from the Katrina Survivor's Assembly in Jackson, Mississippi.

"Voices From the Ninth Ward" by Tim Shorrock of Reconstruction Watch.

Comments

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

>Katrina has fallen so far off the radar screen you can't find it

This was my greatest fear. The New Orleans and Louisiana authorities, per the New York Times article, are dithering. The President needs to act, and act decisively, and his big-business donors can't tell him what to think this time. He needs to think, and make a decision, without being told how.

President Bush and his team of apologists could never actually convince anyone that their neglect didn't cause people to die in New Orleans. They know this by now; there's no putting lipstick on this pig. When Katrina is mentioned, people all over America, and the world, think of it as Bush's negligent homicide. But I was most worried, since it makes him look so bad, and can't be spun, that instead of taking immediate action to fix things down there, he'd want to pretend it wasn't there. They're pretending New Orleans isn't there. And, hey--if they do it long enough...

An excerpt from the New York Times article that I agree with:

The price tag for protection against a Category 5 hurricane, which would involve not just stronger and higher levees but also new drainage canals and environmental restoration, would very likely run to well over $32 billion. That is a lot of money. But that starting point represents just 1.2 percent of this year's estimated $2.6 trillion in federal spending, which actually overstates the case, since the cost would be spread over many years. And it is barely one-third the cost of the $95 billion in tax cuts passed just last week by the House of Representatives.

Total allocations for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war on terror have topped $300 billion. All that money has been appropriated as the cost of protecting the nation from terrorist attacks. But what was the worst possible case we fought to prevent?

Losing a major American city.

[...]

If the rest of the nation has decided it is too expensive to give the people of New Orleans a chance at renewal, we have to tell them so. We must tell them we spent our rainy-day fund on a costly stalemate in Iraq, that we gave it away in tax cuts for wealthy families and shareholders. We must tell them America is too broke and too weak to rebuild one of its great cities.

Our nation would then look like a feeble giant indeed. But whether we admit it or not, this is our choice to make. We decide whether New Orleans lives or dies.

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

(And yes, Phantom, we know: it's not enough to say that New Orleans and Louisiana officials are dithering; they must bear ALL of the blame, and President Bush has made absolutely no mistakes, ever, of any consequence, except that he wants to devote _too much_ attention to rebuilding New Orleans. President Bush is perfect. But in the real world, where President Bush has actually made mistakes, he could save this city, or at least try...)

This is a _Bush advisor,_ saying that Katrina has fallen completely off the radar screen. A major American city, and he can't be bothered to think about it long enough to rebuild it, or even declare it dead. This person cannot be trusted to run our government. Please, people, write your congressmen and -women, and ask them to save New Orleans. We need a plan. If the locals and President Bush can't do it, someone else needs to.

[Gotham Image]

Lindsay - If you wanna know Bush's real prioities - you have to read the "conversation" we just posted that he , "Bush," had with "Hitchens," in cyber...

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

Phantom, please excuse my last post. It seems like a swipe, in light of your last post on the Facing South post. We have often been sarcastic with one another, but I apologize.

I am very worried about New Orleans, and I have been since Katrina hit. I remain alarmed about the federal response to it, and very concerned that rather than either rebuilding it, as the President says, better than it was, or making a conscious decision to downsize it, which I don't agree with, it may simply be allowed to drift to destruction through inattention, and an incoherent response from both local and federal authorities. This, if it happens, will be a shame to our generation.

[greensmile]

To be honest, the victims of Katrina+fema+under funded delta civil engineering projects had also moved out to the edgs of my concerns. But 1300 children unaccounted for!? That is obscene negligence.

btw, congrats: now both your counters topped a million.