NAGIN, AGAIN

Tell him to get it from W. Jefferson, I’m sure he’s got some cold cash hidden somewhere."

In the wake of over a year after Hurricane Katrina devastated several states in Southeastern US, the complaining and cries for money continue. Many people still are living in government-paid trailers rather than seeking homes and employment. The government is cleaning up the hasty, unconsidered throwing of money at the disaster that ended up paying people as far away as Oregon to stay in hotels that had nothing to do with the disaster whatsoever. The fraud was monumental and happened primarily because of the virulent hatred poured out in the news and by politicians toward the government's standard response to any disaster, larger or smaller than what happened to New Orleans.

Now New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has filed a lawsuit against the Army Corps of Engineers for the floodwalls failing. Never mind that for years he was told by them that these wouldn't hold up to a hurricane even weaker than Katrina. Never mind that he did nothing about it. He wants $77 million dollars in damages. Don Surber looks at some numbers and history:

That works out to $158,869.67 for every one of the 484,674 people who lived in New Orleans as of the 2000 Census.

But in the massive floods of 1993, levees broke up and down the Mississippi — and no one sued.

They rebuilt.

Total damage in 9 states was $15 billion.

Mr Surber calls this "legal looting." Given the mess that New Orleans was before the flooding and hurricane, I wonder how they will choose what was damage from it and what was preexisting damage. Nagin admitted that the money he's seeking is primarily just greed:

Only $1 billion of the $77 billion the city is seeking from the Army Corps of Engineers is for infrastructure damages it says it suffered because of levee breaches during Hurricane Katrina. The rest is for such things as the city’s tarnished image and tourist industry losses.

The city “looked at everything and just kind of piled it on,” Mayor Ray Nagin said.

“We got some advice from some attorneys to be aggressive with the number, and we’ll see what happens,” he said.

Commenters responded:

Perhaps ray nagin’s memorial motor pool will spur the judge in this absurd case to arrive at the right decision.

This is also another reason to institute a ‘loser pays’ system in our civil courts - if nothing else, to keep the parasites, uh, I mean lawyers, at baye.
-by Locomotivereath1901


If the money would mean the criminals among the evacuees would leave Texas cities and return to Nawlins, it might be worth it. Let the democrats that created that mess deal with them there. New Orleans serves as the biggest example of what happens when liberals run the asylum.

The Federal Government gave them the money long ago, and the malcontents still don’t know how to manage it and put their city back together. Pathetic. We’ll probably discover that Nagin is spending levy funds on Mardi Gras parades and scenic bicycle trails again
-by Christine


Nagin may be an incompetent racist when it comes to governing and emergency preparedness, but he seems to be a highly skilled con artist and thief. It’s sad that the best thing that ever happened to this man is a hurricane that destroyed the lives of a lot of innocent people. At least I’m beginning to understand why the people of New Orleans re-elected this despicable man to office: No mayoral candidate with a conscience would have been able to milk this disaster for as much money as greedy Nagin has.
-by LDF


New Orleans is the most corrupt city in the most corrupt state in North America.

Ray Nagin was elected as a reformer. Before Katrina he lived up to that promise. After all, he won the fight for his reform that required all new hired police officers in New Orleans can not have any felony convictions. (Previously hired police felons are grandfathered in.)

The US government spent billions of dollars to protect New Orleans from the folly of building most of their city below sea level. Those frolicksome Louisianans stole most of that money. What the hell, Laisez le bon temps roulez. Now that New Orleans has suffered the inevitable results of pathological compulsion to steal from people who are trying to protect them, they want billions more.

I can understand the people of Houston who have suffered a 25% increase in violent crime thanks to the influx of refugees from New Orleans wanting to send them back to the dysfunctional third world hell hole that they came from, but as Christians and fellow Americans, we have the same obligation to try to assimilate them into life in a first world nation that we had to take them in when they first arrived fleeing for their lives from the flood.

Over time we will imprison and execute the worst of the Louisianan immigrants and many of the rest will fit in just fine. Just for the sake of saying something positive, I have never had a bad meal in Louisiana.

Any judge who gives any credence whatsoever to Ray Nagin’s law suit will demonstrate that he is either profoundly retarded or corrupt and will justify the growing contempt of court that more and more Americans are feeling towards our judicial system.
-by Mark in Texas


If there really is global warming and if the sea is rising dramatically and will continue to do so then why not evacuate New Orleans permanently? It is below sea level, and there is not enough money in the world to erect a sea wall of sufficient height to save this preposterously positioned small city. It seems as if thief-leader Nagin would have us abandon New York, Boston, Charelston, etc, but save his tourist trap. Is this what we’re supposed to agree with?
-by Jack Lifton

I think a lot of people are feeling a bit of Katrina fatigue at this point. Yes, it was terrible for the people involved, but it's been more than a year, and the incessant complaining, bitter whining and constant condemnation of everyone but the people most guilty is getting quite wearing. Take the disaster relief funding.

Christine points out that much of the disaster relief was spent on the Mardi Gras festival and on various tourist attraction areas like bike trails. The Louisiana government and in particular New Orleans is in charge of how much and where this money gets spent. This is why the complaint in the Guardian article:

locals are frustrated that of the $110bn assigned by Congress in relief aid, only $53bn has actually been spent. Outside the downtown tourist area, large areas of the city remain disrupted with violent crime and murders on the rise and access to healthcare limited.

Is so disingenuous. Yes, that money isn't being spent well... but the people to blame are the ones in charge of New Orleans, not congress, not FEMA, and not President Bush. Everyone in the government of Louisiana went overboard blaming everyone else for what went wrong in a desperate attempt to make sure nobody looked at that man behind the curtain: themselves, and their failures. Notice how the other states, also torn to shreds by the hurricane, make no such comments or complaints. They go about their business and get the job done. Louisiana alone is filled with these comments. And the legacy media, eager to help smear President Bush, bends over backwards so far they make a Q.

Make no mistake, this was a war: a war of ideology, a war to defeat President Bush and Repubs in congress. And like all wars, the first casualty is the truth. Like most of the south, New Orleans has some nice spots and the rest looks like what most of the country would call a slum. No sidewalks, often no paving on the streets, trash and broken down machinery littering the sides of the roads, vacant lots where buildings burnt, collapsing, mangled old buildings, and so on.

The Southern states often have very high taxes, but little to show for it in the actual infrastructure. Then when things collapse they cry disaster and ask for federal assistance. The governments are so entrenched, so corrupt, and so completely part of a soulless political machine of insiders and good ol' boy networks that the taxes simply don't reach the people they are supposed to. How this will change, if ever, I do not know.

Lawsuits, Hurricane Katrina