Joobo the King of Wisdom

Louisiana Corruption Round-Up

Well, it appears that local officials were more to blame for what happened before and after Hurricane Katrina hit than even the harshest of critics of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin or Louisiana Governnor Kathleen Blanco knew.

Here is just a few stories outlining the incompetence, the corruption, the lies of the local and state government in Louisiana.

Louisiana Officials Indicted Before Katrina Hit

Senior officials in Louisiana's emergency planning agency already were awaiting trial over allegations stemming from a federal investigation into waste, mismanagement and missing funds when Hurricane Katrina struck.

And federal auditors are still trying to track as much as $60 million in unaccounted for funds that were funneled to the state from the Federal Emergency Management Agency dating back to 1998.

In March, FEMA demanded that Louisiana repay $30.4 million to the federal government.

The problems are particularly worrisome, federal officials said, because they involve the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, the agency that will administer much of the billions in federal aid anticipated for victims of Katrina.

Earlier this week, federal Homeland Security officials announced they would send 30 investigators and auditors to the Gulf Coast to ensure relief funds were properly spent.

Details of the ongoing criminal investigations come from two reports by the inspector general's office in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, as well as in state audits, and interviews this week with federal and state officials.

The reports were prepared by the federal agency's field office in Denton, Texas, and cover 1998 to 2003. Improper expenditures previously identified by auditors include a parka, a briefcase and a trip to Germany.

Whoops! It would appear that when this started in 1998, President Bush was to blame, even though he was the Governor of Texas.

But, let's assume that a barrier that was properly built could have saved New Orleans. What was its possibilities?

Actually, pretty good - except for the intervention of liberals. In 1965, Congress funded a barrier system which would preserve the city from a hurricane and its flood waters. So, what happened? Liberal environmentalist whackos stopped it with lawsuits, and courts agreed with them.

A Barrier That Could Have Been

In the wake of Hurricane Betsy 40 years ago, Congress approved a massive hurricane barrier to protect New Orleans from storm surges that could inundate the city.

But the project, signed into law by President Johnson, was derailed in 1977 by an environmental lawsuit. Now the question is: Could that barrier have protected New Orleans from the damage wrought by Hurricane Katrina?

"If we had built the barriers, New Orleans would not be flooded," said Joseph Towers, the retired chief counsel for the Army Corps of Engineers New Orleans district.

Tower's view is endorsed by a former key senator, along with academic experts, who say a hurricane barrier is the only way to control the powerful storm surges that enter Lake Pontchartrain and threaten the city. Other experts are less sure, saying the barrier would have been no match for Katrina.

The project was stopped in its tracks when an environmental lawsuit won a federal injunction on the grounds that the Army's environmental impact statement was flawed. By the mid-1980s, the Corps of Engineers abandoned the project.

The project faced formidable opposition not only from environmentalists but from regional government officials outside of New Orleans who argued that the barriers would choke commerce and harm marine life in ecologically sensitive Lake Pontchartrain.

The barrier would have protected New Orleans from storm surges barreling into the lake through two narrow passages — the Rigolets and the Chef Menteur Pass.

In short, President Bush is to blame for this because in 1965 he was 20 years old and in college.

Now, hold on! Forget the levees and the barriers. Wasn't there an evacuation plan mandated by the city? Well, there was - but it appears that ol' New Orleans corruption sucked the money out to "other sources"...

Money Earmarked for Evacuation Redirected

As far back as eight years ago, Congress ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency to develop a plan for evacuating New Orleans during a massive hurricane, but the money instead went to studying the causeway bridge that spans the city's Lake Pontchartrain, officials say.

The outcome provides one more example of the government's failure to prepare for a massive but foreseeable catastrophe, said the lawmaker who helped secure the money for FEMA to develop the evacuation plan.

"They never used it for the intended purpose," said former Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La. "The whole intent was to give them resources so they could plan an evacuation of New Orleans that anticipated that a very large number of people would never leave."

Of course, eight years ago George W. Bush was the Governor of Texas, so he must be to blame for this, too.

So, we have the problem corraled, no? No barrier because of liberal environmentalists, no evacuation plan because of liberal corruption in a city controlled by liberals, and a lack of planning overall. What else is there to blame George W. Bush for?

Well - there is this...the board that controlled the levees was corrupt, too.

We are shocked. Shocked!

Is the Orleans Levee Board doing its job?

The unveiling of the Mardi Gras Fountain was celebrated this year in typical New Orleans style. The cost of $2.4 million was paid by the Orleans Levee Board, the state agency whose main job is to protect the levees surrounding New Orleans — the same levees that failed after Katrina hit.

"They misspent the money," says Billy Nungesser, a former top Republican official who was briefly president of the Levee Board. "Any dollar they wasted was a dollar that could have went in the levees."

Nungesser says he lost his job because he targeted wasteful spending.

"A cesspool of politics, that’s all it was," says Nungesser. "[Its purpose was to] provide jobs for people."

In fact, NBC News has uncovered a pattern of what critics call questionable spending practices by the Levee Board — a board which, at one point, was accused by a state inspector general of "a long-standing and continuing disregard of the public interest."

Beyond the fountain, there's the $15 million spent on two overpasses that helped gamblers get to Bally's riverboat casino. Critics tried and failed to put some of that money into flood protection.

There was also $45,000 for private investigators to dig up dirt on radio host and board critic Robert Namer.

"They hired a private eye for nine months to find something to make me look wacko, to make me look crazy or bad." says Namer. "They couldn’t find anything."

Namer sued and the board then spent another $45,000 to settle.

Of course, black liberals who control the city, and white liberals who control the state, have nothing to do with this. It is all the fault of George W. Bush.

Yep...that's the ticket!