Sequoia electronic voting machines weren't the only thing helping the ascent of Rhodes Scholar Piyush Jindal to the Louisiana Governor's mansion on Saturday. A convenient road closure also helped block the New Orleans diaspora from voting. CNN Oct. 20:
" A truck carrying acetylene-filled cylinders was engulfed in flames Saturday after it overturned and some containers exploded, closing part of Interstate 10 in New Orleans on gubernatorial election day, authorities said.
The driver, who suffered minor injuries, apparently fell asleep at the wheel about 5 a.m. (6 a.m. ET) and hit a guardrail, said Louisiana Highway Patrol Trooper Louis Calato.
Debris from the shattered cylinders hit five cars, he said. There was no hazard, he added.
The highway was expected to be closed in both directions for hours while the spill was cleared, and traffic was being rerouted. Calato said more than 200 cylinders were on the truck.
Saturday's election is a key one for Louisiana. -----
FEMA has kept records on Louisiana diasporan refugees form state authorities who wanted to make sure they could vote.
Jindal's close ties to both London and the biopharma-military complex worry analysts who note that a British team led by CNN reporter Jeff Koinange narrowly failed in releasing West Nile virus in the immediate aftermath of Katrina.
"A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that Louisiana's attorney general can't sue the Army Corps of Engineers on behalf of Hurricane Katrina victims who don't have lawyers.
The emergency order by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals came on the day of the deadline flood victims had to file suit -- the second anniversary of Katrina. The order negates a lawsuit filed by state Attorney General Charles Foti earlier Wednesday.
The appeals court said that U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval acted without proper authority in appointing Foti as guardian for about 350,000 people with claims against the Corps.
Duval had agreed to let Foti sue the Corps on behalf of lawyerless claimants who had not yet filed suit.
[...]Joseph Bruno, lead plaintiff attorney, criticized the 5th Circuit's ruling, saying it would likely cut out many people from pursuing action against the corps.
"Every time you turn around, the government is sticking it to us, trying to limit their liability," Bruno said.
[...]On Feb. 2, Duval ruled the Corps of Engineers can be held liable in a case alleging a navigation channel called the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet caused much of the flooding in eastern New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish.
Buoyed by that ruling, lawyers filed a suit against the Corps, alleging that dredging on the 17th Street Canal caused the flooding of most other parts of the city.
The Corps has argued it is shielded from suits by the 1928 Flood Control Act. The Corps has acknowledged that some of the flooding was caused by poor designs and faulty engineering on the 17th Street Canal. But the agency says the [MRGO]Outlet did not contribute significantly to the flooding. -----
The federal government's slow-motion genocide operation on South Louisiana continues, as highlighted this week in a U.S. Senate hearing shaired by Louisiana's Sen. Mary Landrieu.
"Senator Mary L. Landrieu, D-La., today chaired a hearing on the process localities must go through to complete Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) project worksheets (PWs), a requirement for receiving federal funds. As a result of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, there are 23,000 public works projects in Louisiana, and each one requires complicated, time consuming steps in order to receive FEMA funds.
"The project worksheet system is inefficient, slow and contradictory," Sen. Landrieu said. "Anyone who comes in contact with it quickly understands it is one of the major roadblocks to our recovery from Katrina and Rita. Destroyed localities with no tax base are required to put up money in advance. Work is reviewed not just building-by-building but segment by segment. Tens of thousands of documents must be completed for a single project. Communities are prevented from building better and smarter. Our locals must re-justify their projects because of FEMA's high employee turnover. And FEMA inspectors systematically low ball damage estimates, in some cases by four or five times."
The first panel of witnesses that testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Disaster Recovery Subcommittee included locally elected officials who each testified that FEMA is tied up in bureaucracy and undermines the recovery by continually underestimating project costs and hiring inexperienced personnel.
The officials included: C. Ray Nagin, Mayor of New Orleans; Kevin Davis, President of St. Tammany Parish; and Henry "Junior" Rodriguez, President of St. Bernard Parish.
St. Bernard Parish was completely destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, displacing 67,500 people, and President Rodriguez said FEMA was primarily responsible for the slow pace of recovery. In one example, he explained that the parish sought to consolidate its sewer system into one wastewater plant, a less costly approach than repairing or replacing the pre-storm system. FEMA has told the parish to pursue the project in three different ways but because of FEMA's red tape, the parish still lacks a working sewer system and instead pumps out waste by the truckload.
"We got by Katrina and Rita," President Rodriguez said. "I don't know if we can get through FEMA. This is one hell of a catastrophe. We're still working out of trailers. We're in no better shape now than we were two years ago."
Mayor Nagin added that the constant FEMA staff turnover requires New Orleans to repeatedly justify the need for public works projects.
"Every couple of months we seem to have dealt with a different FEMA representative," Mayor Nagin said. "And we almost had to start from scratch every time a new person came in."
Witnesses who testified on the second panel included... Mark Merritt, Senior Vice President of Response and Recovery, James Lee Witt Associates.
Merritt, who worked for FEMA under Director James Lee Witt from 1993 until 2001, testified that FEMA is measuring its progress by the number of project worksheets written.
"We should be counting the number of schools, hospitals and miles of roads repaired and replaced, not the number of PWs written," he said. Merritt added that FEMA is a much different agency than when he worked there. He said the agency no longer employs the necessary staff to deal with catastrophic disasters and that 80 percent of FEMA employees sent to Louisiana following the hurricanes had just nine days of experience. FEMA staff tasked with Gulf Coast recovery lack the experience to recognize flexibility in the Stafford Act, which is the "core of what is inhibiting the PW process," he said.
"The White House today released a Statement of Administration Policy reaffirming its opposition to fair hurricane funding rules and levee construction in S. 965, the Senate Supplemental Appropriations Bill. U.S. Senator Mary L. Landrieu, D-La., secured language in the bill to waive the 10 percent local cost match required of Hurricane Katrina-, Rita- and Wilma-affected communities for disaster recovery projects. She also secured $1.3 billion to cover a shortfall for east and west bank levee projects in New Orleans and surrounding parishes, which was originally authorized in the 3rd supplemental in 2005.
According to the statement, "because of the excessive and extraneous non-emergency spending it contains, if this legislation were presented to the President, he would veto the bill." ...
"The Administration continues to hold Louisiana and the Gulf Coast to a different standard than all other disaster-stricken communities," Sen. Landrieu said. "Our communities withstood an unprecedented disaster, but the Administration continues to oppose giving the region the same funding tools that he gave after 9/11 and his father gave to Hurricane Andrew victims in 1992. This match requirement, and the paperwork it creates, paralyzes the recovery of Louisiana's schools, firehouses and small businesses.
"The President could remove much of this red tape with a stroke of his pen, and as long as our communities must meet this requirement, recovery will continue to be slow.
"In 1928, a North Louisiana populist and member of the Railroad Commission (the forerunner to the state’s Public Service Commission) capitalized on the greatest natural disaster that the state of Louisiana had ever experienced (the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927) to capture the gubernatorial election. This populist, of course, was Huey Long. His "tax the rich," Robin Hood style of politics left behind a legacy that defined the contours of Louisiana politics for most of the twentieth century. Now another North Louisiana populist is poised for a gubernatorial run that seeks to duplicate Huey Long’s feat after a natural disaster (Katrina) that dwarfs even the Great Mississippi River Flood as far as the state of Louisiana is concerned.
Foster Campbell, a Democrat from Bossier Parish and current member of the Public Service Commission, is running for governor. Prior to his election to the Public Service Commission, he spent twenty-seven years as a member of the Louisiana State Senate. While in the Senate, his signature issue was his push for an oil processing tax on foreign oil refined in the state of Louisiana. He tried and tried and tried to amend the state constitution to allow for this tax but failed to win the support of the Legislature.
Campbell attributes his lack of success to the power of the oil and gas industry and the "coziness" of state leaders to that industry’s representatives. Campbell has not given up on his idea – instead, he's making the processing tax the centerpiece issue of his campaign for governor. Therefore, expect Foster Campbell's candidacy to engender a great deal of controversy during this election cycle.
For his part, Campbell probably would have it no other way. Campbell will run a classic Huey Long style populist campaign. His hope is to make the processing tax the central issue in the campaign. The tax, according to Campbell, would generate $5 billion a year – money that he feels would enable Louisiana the revenues to invest in its roads, schools, infrastructure, coastal restoration, and in the rebuilding of New Orleans without having to wait for a handout from the federal government. For him, it also helps that two of his likely opponents – Governor Blanco and U.S. Rep. Bobby Jindal - are strongly opposed to Campbell's proposal. Campbell will attempt to portray them – and anyone else who opposes his tax – as stooges in the pockets of the oil and gas industry. He will attempt to mount a classic "people vs. the special interests" campaign in the hopes of generating a populist wave that sweeps him into the Governor’s Mansion.
... His populist message may appeal beyond North Louisiana – indeed, it may strike a resonant chord particularly among black voters in South Louisiana (whom Blanco badly needs) who feel the governor has not done enough to help blacks who were disproportionately displaced by the horror of Katrina. Furthermore, those who feel the federal government has treated Louisiana like a stepchild might embrace a proposal that holds out the possibility of Louisiana taking responsibility for solving its own problems rather than waiting for the cavalry from Washington to swoop down to save us.
Campbell himself has believed that it would take a crisis for Louisiana to enact the oil processing tax and Katrina may well have provided it. The storm exacerbated many underlying problems that existed prior to Katrina – our poverty, the state's failure to invest in education, our ailing health care system, the worst roads in the nation, the erosion of our coasts which made the storm worse, and so on. Thus far, state government has not responded to the crisis the state is in as a result of Hurricane Katrina with policy prescriptions adequate to meet the gravity of the challenges left in the storm’s wake. This failure creates an opening for a candidate who proposes something radical to meet the crisis. Campbell hopes to fill that void. Voters impatient with the pace of the recovery and/or disillusioned with the current regime may find Campbell appealing. Whether he succeeds or not, one thing is for sure: it will be a very interesting ride. -----
Campbell's plan would use the refinery tax money to eliminate all personal and corporate state income tax and still have billions left over for infrastructure improvements.
The only possible defense the Army Corps of Engineers could present for negligence is the truth -- that the flodwalls on New Orleans' canals were bombed.
"Submitting a claim for a staggering $77 billion, the city of New Orleans joined tens of thousands of would-be plaintiffs who rushed to beat a Thursday deadline to alert the Army Corps of Engineers that they may sue for losses resulting from the levee breaches after Hurricane Katrina.
Also joining the queue were Entergy New Orleans, the city's bankrupt electrical utility, which is seeking $655 million, and the New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board, which put in a claim of about $460 million, spokesmen for the agencies said.
While they are likely to be among the largest filed, the three claims became part of an avalanche of paperwork that poured into the corps' Leake Avenue headquarters as Thursday's 11:59 p.m. deadline approached, corps personnel said.
By the time of the morning commute, cars already had clogged the two-lane River Road and miles of connecting arteries. The miles-long traffic jam got so thick that the federal agency established satellite pick-up points on Carrollton Avenue and Magazine Street.
[...]
Until recently, the idea of suing the Army Corps of Engineers was dismissed by most lawyers as a non-starter. They pointed to a 1928 federal law immunizing the corps from lawsuits stemming from its flood-control projects.
But early last month, U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval ruled that the corps has no such protection when it comes to lawsuits over problems caused by its navigation projects.
That decision kept alive a 2006 lawsuit filed against the corps by WDSU-TV anchor Norman Robinson, a Lower 9th Ward couple and two St. Bernard Parish residents, and raised prospects of success of similar cases.
Robinson and his fellow plaintiffs argue that negligence by the corps in building and maintaining the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet destroyed protective wetlands and turned the shipping channel into a speedway for Katrina storm surges that destroyed their homes.
Crime reporter Dan Moldea exposed years ago how NFL games can be and are routinely fixed for various reasons. Football has long served as a taxpayer-funded "bread-and-circuses" distraction for the American people; turning their attention away from the high crimes of the state. but in recent years, the NFL has been used as a tool of even more sophisticated psychologicla operaitons on the American people. This was reflective in the post-9/11 rise of the New England Patriots coupled with the winter Super Bowl holiday ritual becoming increasingly nationalistic and militaristic.
Television analyst Steven Colbert exposed on Wednesday night how the rise of the New Orleans Saints may be being used as a way to preoccupy the remaining people of New Orleans and divert their attention away from outstanding questions (exploding levees, HAARP, etc.) regarding the federal genocide operation unleashed on the city in August 2005:
Total411.info's sources in New Orleans report that this has indeed been the case as of late, with local news media reporting on barely anything else; New Orleanians lining up around the block for Saints memorabilia, the fully-employed dropping hundreds or thousands of dollars on game and plane tickets, etc.
"Sen. Joe Lieberman, the only Democrat to endorse President Bush’s new plan for Iraq, has quietly backed away from his pre-election demands that the White House turn over potentially embarrassing documents relating to its handling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans.[...]
The decision by Lieberman, the new chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, to back away from the committee's Katrina probe is already dismaying public-interest groups.[...]
Sen. Joe Lieberman, the only Democrat to endorse President Bush’s new plan for Iraq, has quietly backed away from his pre-election demands that the White House turn over potentially embarrassing documents relating to its handling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans.
Last year, when he was running for re-election in Connecticut, Lieberman was a vocal critic of the administration's handling of Katrina. He was especially dismayed by its failure to turn over key records.[...]
Among the missing material: the record of a videoconference in the White House Situation Room in which former Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown said he warned senior officials about the dire situation in New Orleans, but was greeted with "deafening silence." Also missing: records believed to include messages and conversations involving the president, Vice President Dick Cheney and their top aides during the days in late August and early September 2005 when the Katrina disaster was unfolding and thousands of city residents were flocking to overcrowded shelters and hanging onto rooftops awaiting rescue.
But now that he chairs the homeland panel—and is in a position to subpoena the records—Lieberman has decided not to pursue the material, according to Leslie Phillips, the senator’s chief committee spokeswoman.[...]
But in the view of White House critics, the Katrina fallout is far from over. They view the missing White House material, along with contracting foul-ups and abuses, as an important part of the story ... said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a liberal watchdog group. "For the Congress not to be willing to stand up to the White House and demand to know who's accountable is a total abdication of their responsibility. How serious about oversight are they if they're not willing to flex their muscle over this one? Wasn't the election about holding the government accountable? Congress has the power for oversight, and the mandate. Does it have the will?"
Rep. Charlie Melancon, a Louisiana Democrat who participated in House investigations on Katrina last year, also said the Katrina disaster needs further inquiry and that he will continue to push for such a probe in the House. ... "We deserve to know what happened."
In the House, both Democrats and the GOP majority on the Government Reform Committee last year also expressed frustration with White House refusals to turn over internal records related to Katrina. But as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi continues to keep committees on a tight leash, it is not at all clear that House leaders will be more assertive than Lieberman plans to be in the Senate. A congressional official familiar with the agenda of Rep. Henry Waxman, the House panel’s new chairman, said that trying to force the White House to surrender Katrina material was still a "possibility."
" Four of the largest Katrina contracts currently under review by the Homeland Security Department's inspector general. The companies have denied that political connections played a factor in their contract awards.
———
BECHTEL GROUP INC. Location: San Francisco
Value of contracts: $250 million, on top of previous no-bid work of up to $575 million
Contributions: More than $1.3 million since 2000, primarily to Republicans
Also: CEO Riley Bechtel served on Bush's Export Council from 2003-2004
———
CH2M HILL COMPANIES LTD. Location: Englewood, Colo.
Value of contracts: $250 million, on top of previous no-bid work of up to $500 million
Contributions: Nearly $1 million since 1999, primarily to Republican National Committee and other Republicans
Also: Roughly $500 million in previous government contracts
———
FLUOR CORP. Location: Irving, Tex.
Value of contracts: $250 million, on top of previous no-bid work of up to $1.4 billion
Contributions: More than $930,000 since 2000, primarily to Republicans
Also: Contracts awarded to subsidiary Del-Jen Industries also under review
———
THE SHAW GROUP INC. Location: Baton Rouge, La.
Value of contracts: $250 million, on top of previous no-bid work of up to $950 million
Contributions: Roughly $290,000 since 2000, evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans
Also: Former FEMA director Joe Allbaugh, a longtime friend of President Bush, is Shaw's registered lobbyist and business consultant
———
Sources: Federal Emergency Management Agency, Hoover's, Taxpayers for Common Sense -----
"Department of Homeland Security latest to report computer thefts. More than 100 laptop computers used by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to process sensitive information following hurricanes Katrina and Rita along the Gulf Coast are now reported as being stolen. Three U.S. Coast Guard computers have also been stolen. It is not known how many people were affected by the theft of any personal data contained in the computers. -----
"A man who pulled a hoax on Louisiana officials and 1,000 contractors by presenting himself as a federal housing official said Monday he intended to focus attention on a lack of affordable housing.
"We basically go around impersonating bad institutes or institutes doing very bad things," said the man, who identified himself as Andy Bichlbaum, a 42-year-old former college teacher of video and media arts who lives in New York and Paris.
"That would be HUD. At this moment, they're doing some really bad things."
Masquerading as Rene Oswin, an official at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Bichlbaum followed Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin to the lectern Monday morning at the Pontchartrain Center in Kenner.
In a speech to attendees of the Gulf Coast Reconstruction and Hurricane Preparedness Summit, he laid out grandiose plans for HUD to reverse course.
After the speaker read from a text he said had been prepared by his boss, HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson...
"Everything is going to change about the way we work, and the change is going to start here today in New Orleans," the man said during his speech.
[...] The man left a flier bearing a HUD emblem that said attendees could go to a ribbon-cutting ceremony at a public housing project. A free lunch and transportation aboard buses were promised.
[...] In his speech, Bichlbaum said the department's mission was to ensure affordable housing is available for those who need it.
"This year, in New Orleans, I'm ashamed to say we have failed," he said.
To change that, HUD would reverse its plans to demolish 5,000 units "of perfectly good public housing," with housing in the city in tight supply, he said.
Former occupants have been "begging to move back in," he said. "We're going to help them to do that."
[...]
Bichlbaum said Monday's prank was the latest in a series pulled off by The Yes Men, whose members have recently masqueraded as representatives of McDonald's, Halliburton and Dow Chemical.
"Fortunately, the law protects freedom of speech," he said. "What we're doing is not actually lying. It's actually exposing the lies. There's nothing morally wrong with what we're doing."
[...]
Annie Chen, media coordinator for Survivors Village, a tent-city protest for the reopening of public housing in New Orleans, applauded Bichlbaum's theatrics.
"Right now, a lie is better than the truth," she said. -----
Out of the $120 billion or so federal dollars apprpriated for Katrina aid, the city of New Orleans has only received one one-thousandth of that to repair its infrastructure, whch was devestated when federally built and maintained levees exploded. AP Aug 25:
"NEW ORLEANS - First came the floodwaters, then the paperwork. Billions of promised federal dollars to fix New Orleans' crumbling infrastructure have gone largely untapped a year after Hurricane Katrina. City officials complain that a snarl of red tape, restrictions and unexpectedly high costs have kept hundreds of public buildings in disrepair, streets pocked with potholes and most parks too dirty for children to play.[...]
the city has collected only $117 million to start the repair work in what has been billed as the largest urban restoration in U.S. history.
For every repair project, city officials must follow a lengthy application process — and spend their own money — before getting a dime of federal aid to fix at least 833 projects such as police stations, courtrooms, baseball fields or auditoriums.
Residents don't care much what the cause is. They're just tired of crater-like potholes, sudden drops in water pressure and debris-clogged storm drains.
"We're not asking for a lot. At this point, we're just looking for basic services: power, gas, water. Sewer that doesn't back up into your house would be nice too," said Jeb Bruneau, president of the neighborhood association in the Lakeview area.
[...] The worksheets are submitted to FEMA, which determines whether the project is eligible for federal aid. If approved, the federal government releases the approved money to the state, but the local government fronts the money to have the work done. After that, the local government can submit receipts for reimbursement.
The process takes months and can be further complicated if costs surpass the original request — a particular concern in New Orleans because of shortages of materials and construction workers.
It also requires the city have cash to pay upfront.
Rocky Vaccarella, who traveled to DC to heap praise upon GW Bush, says on MSNBC's Hardball that he thinks the levees were sabotaged under the cover of Hurricane Katrina!
Here's a transcript of the relevant remarks, from Hardball, Aug. 25, 2006:
"ROCKY VACCARELLA, KATRINA SURVIVOR: I live in St. Bernard Parish, and I was born and raised right there. I fished off them levess. And them levees held up during many hurricanes that came through. And you know, back in '65 -- it was a proven fact that the levees were blown up! And i feel my opinion about the levee is a little bit different than some other opinions...
Because I was actually on my roof when the levees broke, and I just have concern that it might have not been a "weak levee." I rode my bike on that levee as a child... to me the levee was like the Great Wall of China.
CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC HOST: Yeah --
VACCARELLA: I was inside the levee protection system. I felt safe. We beared the storm. And then the next thing you know, the levees were breached.
MATTHEWS: Let me--
VACCARELLA: And you know what, sometimes the levees were breached to protect other cities... -----
When Vaccarella says "back in '65," he is referring to Hurricane Betsy. During the that storm, the levee along the Indutrial Canal was breached, flooding the Lower Ninth Ward and St. Bernard Parish.
It is bizarre that this man so fervently supports the figurehead of the federal government while simultaneously believing the federal levees were covertly sabotaged -- and presumably covered up by that same federal government. But such perhaps is the doublethink endemic in traumatized 21st-Century America.
As the world watched in horror, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans on August 29, 2005. Like many who watched the unfolding drama on television news, director Spike Lee was shocked not only by the scale of the disaster, but by the slow, inept and disorganized response of the emergency and recovery effort. Lee was moved to document this modern American tragedy, a morality play witnessed by people all around the world. The result is WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE: A REQUIEM IN FOUR ACTS. The film is structured in four acts, each dealing with a different aspect of the events that preceded and followed Katrina's catastrophic passage through New Orleans. Acts I and II premiere Monday, August 21 at 9pm (ET/PT), followed by Acts III and IV on Tuesday, August 22 at 9pm. All four acts will be seen Tuesday, Aug. 29 (8:00 p.m.-midnight), the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Read more. -----
"US STATE DEPARTMENT, ARMED FORCES AWOL FOR AMERICANS TRAPPED BY ISRAEL IN LEBANON
OTHER NATIONALS ALREADY EVACUATED WHILE AMERICANS ARE LEFT AS SITTING DUCKS FOR FALSE FLAG WAR PROVOCATIONS
Washington DC, July 15 – (11 PM EDT) The below hypothesis has received further corroboration from Fox News Saturday evening. According to Silva Boghossian, a US citizen stuck in Lebanon interviewed by Greta van Susteren at 10:25 Eastern Daylight Time, "the US has no plan" for an effective evacuation of American citizens in Lebanon. According to Ms. Boghossian, Italian and South African citizens staying in her hotel were evacuated “two days ago,” meaning on Thursday, one day after the Israeli bombi9ng began on Wednesday morning. Ms. Boghossian said that she has registered with US consular authorities, but that “nothing had happened so far.” She added that the persons she spoke with were of undetermined nationality. The hotel where she is staying is now “full of Americans,” Ms. Boghossian told Fox.
All parts of Lebanon are within easy flying distance by helicopter from sovereign British bases on the nearby island of Cyprus (Larnaka, etc.) Nothing would be easier than to set up a speedy airlift which could bring all Americans in Lebanon quickly to safety. Bush, despite his constant demagogy about protecting the lives of Americans, is pursuing a policy of flagrant indifference to what happens to these 25,000 American citizens. They are being hung out to dry, left as sitting ducks for whatever bloody false flag operation may be cooked up by the Israeli intelligence services. This is criminal negligence infinitely worse than Katrina, in that any mass casualties among these Americans will represent a one-way ticket for this entire nation to World War III, a war which sooner or later will be fought with nuclear and thermonuclear weapons. A real US president would right now be warning Israel that it will be held responsible for the lives and safety of every American in Lebanon. The feckless Bush, totally isolated in St. Petersburg, is instead focused on showing his subservience to Olmert. It is therefore up to US public opinion to demand effective security measures for Americans stranded in Lebanon, with immediate evacuation to Cyprus or other safe areas. – WGT -----
Army Corps floodgates will regularly flood Orleans
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. Congress passed as part of its "aid" package money to build giant floodgates at the base of New Orleans' drainage canals. This move was based on the idea that the concrete floodwalls of the canals collapsed due to the storm surge brought in to the canals from Lake Pontchartrani. The problem with this theory, of course, is that the storm surge was well within the capacities of the canals -- and all evidence indicates the levees and floodwalls along New Orleans' drainage canals were sabotaged by explosives under the cover of the storm.
Now, with these "floodgates" closing off the canals every time a storm threatens, New Orleans will be compromised in its ability to keep the city dry. The Army Corps, who built the exploding floodwalls, will now hold the ability to flood the city with a flick of a switch. Regular floods induced by this engineering boondoggle will be a huge hindrance on the ability of the city to grow. This will drive up insurance rates and pave the way for greater depopulation of New Orleans, in tune with the United Nations' Malthusian Agenda 21 plan.
"The new floodgates and pumps in the 17th Street Canal won’t be functional by Sunday as the Army Corps of Engineers had predicted, and the corps says it can’t set a new target date.
[...]
Congress funded construction of the multimillion-dollar floodgates in late December to keep storm surges out of the canals and reduce pressure on their suspect floodwalls. As it stands now, the corps won’t allow more than five feet of surge into the 17th Street Canal. If a tropical system threatens before the floodgates and the corps’ pumps are operable, sheetpile will be used to block surge at the Old Hammond Highway bridge.
The London and Orleans canals are in better shape. There, St. Germain said, the gates already can be closed and the temporary pumps operated if tropical weather threatens.
At the Orleans Canal, which carries substantially less water than the London and 17th canals, the corps already can match the pumping capacity normally provided by the Orleans Sewerage & Water Board: 2,200 cubic feet per second of water moving out of the canal around the closed gates and into Lake Pontchartrain.
At London, however, the temporary pumping capacity is only 2,800 cfs, a significant decline from the 8,000 cfs that S&WB pumps can provide when all are operational. Corps officials have said they will try to supplement that figure with portable pumps.,
An even greater loss of capacity is occurring at 17th Street, where the S&WB’s Pump Station No. 6, located along Orpheum Avenue, can move water at the rate of 10,000 cfs when all of its giant pumps are operating.That won’t happen when the floodgates are closed because city pumps will only be allowed to move the volume of water that the smaller, corps pumps downstream can handle. [...] The corps new plan, the one now being examined by Boh Brothers and the pump supply company, calls for adding another two pumps on the east side for another 450 cfs, and 23 portable pumps on the floodgate deck capable of adding another 1,000 cfs.
Previously, the corps had planned to station a gargantuan crane on the floodgate deck to lower the gates against a surge this season, a temporary measure that will be discarded once hydraulically powered winches are added before the start of next storm season.
The deck will instead be used to house portable pumps that can’t be placed on the ground . . .
Engineers are currently designing for four more temporary pumps on the canal’s west side to add another 900 cfs to the mix, but that will come in a later contract modification when it the plan is complete.
In all, the corps has plans for pumps that total 5,150 cfs for this storm season, which ends Nov. 30. But just how much of capacity will be provided at any one time — and whether it will be on-line during the height of the season from mid-August until late September - remains a mystery -----
(Total411.info) -- Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu and the man he is challenging for the New Orleans Mayoralty, incumbent Ray Nagin, have one major difference in their plans for rebuilding New Orleans. Landrieu is endorsing the anti-human nonbinding FEMA directives that would make it prohibitively expensive for New Orleanians to rebuild.
Landrieu would force New Orleanians to raise their homes three feet off of the 100-yr flood plain. This would seriously reduce the ability of poor and middle-class homeowners to rebuild their homes and lives. It would reduce the size of the city -- right in line with the UN Agenda 21 plan to turn settled land back to wilderness and crowd people into dense urban areas. This isn't surprising as his sister, U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu has been in league with the "sustainable development" crowd for a long time. "Sustainable development" is code for penning mankind into crowded urban area where they are easier to control and ultimately kill when the planned 80% population reduction comes.
The flooding problem that came with Katrina was the result of bombs placed inside concrete canal floodwalls throughout the city, floodwalls that had been "refurbished" by federal contractors in the last 10 years. Those contractors were hired by the Army Corps of Engineers. Contracting by the Corps has been very corrupt for several years, and one whistleblower, a Louisiana native named Bunatine Greenhouse, was fired for blowing the whistle on the corps' sweetheart deals with Halliburton.
Nagin, who tipped off Rev. Farrakhan that the levees were bombed, is too scared to speak publicly about the levee sabotage, having received several CIA death threats in the days following the levee bombing. But at least he has enough conscience not to sell out the city to the genocidal FEMA "recommendations" backed by Mitch Landrieu.
Kudos to Senator Lott for leading the charge on this. You'd think these insurance scumbags would have enough sense not to scam a sitting U.S. Senator if they wanted to get away with such big criminal conspiracy.
"A lawyer for U.S. Sen. Trent Lott said Monday that State Farm Insurance Co. is destroying documents that could show the insurer has fraudulently denied thousands of claims by Lott and other policyholders whose homes were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.
Zach Scruggs, one of Lott's attorneys, says his client has a "good faith belief" that several State Farm employees in Biloxi are destroying engineering reports that gave conflicting conclusions about whether wind or water was responsible for storm damage.
Like thousands of Gulf Coast homeowners, Lott's claim was denied because State Farm concluded that Katrina's flood water demolished his beach-front Pascagoula home. State Farm says its policies do not cover damage from rising water, including wind-driven water.
But lawyers for the Mississippi Republican claim Bloomington, Ill.-based State Farm has routinely pressured its engineers to alter "favorable" reports that initially blamed damage on hurricane's wind, which the company's policies cover.[...]
Lott's allegations come on the heels of a lawsuit filed by Kiln, Miss., couple who claimed they had obtained copies of conflicting reports prepared by State Farm's engineers on what damaged their home. They said one report traced the destruction to Katrina's winds while a later report said flooding was the culprit.
[...]Corporate "whistleblowers" who are cooperating with Lott's attorneys have provided evidence that State Farm employees are destroying or moving those "initial favorable" engineering reports.
"We believe that this is a systematic practice," said Scruggs, who is Lott's nephew by marriage.
Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood also says he is investigating allegations that State Farm manipulated engineering reports to deny claims after the Aug. 29 hurricane.
The Presidential Katrina briefing video leaked to Associated Press and now making the rounds hides the truth about what happened to New Orleans' levees in plain sight. The National Weather Center's Max Mayfield tell George W. Bush and Michael Brown in the video "I don't think anyone can tell you with any confidence right now whether the levees will be topped or not, but that is obviously a very very grave concern "
So Bush was right when he said "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." The fear was always that a large storm surge could possibly go over the top of the levees on Lake Ponchartrain and fill the city up with water. No one (outside the black-ops community) expected that in the midst of a storm surge three feet beneath the levee tops, virtually every canal wall inside the city would crumble -- "breached" by obvious use of explosives.
This briefing video was almost certainly leaked to AP by former FEMA Director Brown. Brown is making the case that he was not a wholly incompetent boob, but rather a semi-competent boob stripped of all real authority and hung out to dry by Michael Chertoff.
Brown's remark that the Louisiana Superdome roof may not hold up could seem to be prescient -- a slick leak by the Brown team. Until you realize that Brown was talking about the Superdome roof in a Category 5 storm -- not the Category 2 winds that the Superdome and the canal wall levees actually did receive.
" "Buy us back, Chirac," pleads a facetious mime in the satirical Krewe de Vieux parade in the Faubourg Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans February 11, 2006. Many of the parades' irreverent subgroups took jabs at the sluggish federal response to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when New Orleans levees collapsed, flooding 80 percent of the city. The irreverant and often raunchy Krewe de Vieux parade, marking its 20th year, winds through the city's downtown to kick off the Carnival season. Fat Tuesday is February 28. (UPI Photo/A.J. Sisco) -----
"In Feeding the Goat Volume 20, Rox and August are joined by James from Total Information Analysis to discuss 9-11, Hurricane Katrina, Papal hopeful Cardinal Ratzinger's Nazi Youth background, the Paul is Dead thing, Podcasting, Jeff Gannon's pimp, JFK and a smattering of other topics.
The show opens with a hilarious and groovin' edit from Roxdog utilizing some of our favorite clips of Bush skirting around 9-11 questions.
Feeding the Goat Volume 20 ran on Revere Radio Network on February 8, 2006. Please distribute freely!
" More than 1,000 people flocked to the Northshore Harbor Center to attend the show, which was nearly twice as large as one staged by the same group a month before the hurricane.
Dealers at the 225-table show said firearm sales have surged throughout the New Orleans area as residents replace guns that were destroyed or stolen during the storm. They also reported a spike in sales to first-time gun owners.
"Everyone keeps saying that a gun in the hand is better than being on the phone trying to reach the police or a 911 dispatcher," said Alan Reese, manager of Elliot's Gun Shop in Jefferson.
Bill Stadler, a gun dealer who hosts the Slidell gun show three times a year, said the increase in sales appears evenly divided between people buying replacement weapons and those seeking extra protection.
Sequoia electronic voting machines weren't the only thing helping the ascent of Rhodes Scholar Piyush Jindal to the Louisiana Governor's mansion on Saturday. A convenient road closure also helped block the New Orleans diaspora from voting. CNN Oct. 20: 
From AP August 29, 2007: 
The federal government's slow-motion genocide operation on South Louisiana continues, as highlighted this week in a U.S. Senate hearing shaired by Louisiana's Sen. Mary Landrieu.
MP3 AUDIO
From the office of U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu, 03/27/2007: 
From BayouBuzz.com:
The only possible defense the Army Corps of Engineers could present for negligence is the truth -- that the flodwalls on New Orleans' canals were bombed.
From Newsweek Jan. 11, 2007: 
From Associated Press Dec 25 2006: 
From Wayne Madsen Report Sep. 30/Oct. 1, 2006: 
Here's the audio of the first program.
From CNN August 28, 2006: 
Update from author Webster Tarpley: 
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. Congress passed as part of its "aid" package money to build giant floodgates at the base of New Orleans' drainage canals. This move was based on the idea that the concrete floodwalls of the canals collapsed due to the storm surge brought in to the canals from Lake Pontchartrani. The problem with this theory, of course, is that the storm surge was well within the capacities of the canals -- and all evidence indicates the levees and floodwalls along New Orleans' drainage canals were sabotaged by explosives under the cover of the storm. 
(Total411.info) -- Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu and the man he is challenging for the New Orleans Mayoralty, incumbent Ray Nagin, have one major difference in their plans for rebuilding New Orleans. Landrieu is endorsing the anti-human nonbinding FEMA directives that would make it prohibitively expensive for New Orleanians to rebuild.
Kudos to Senator Lott for leading the charge on this. You'd think these insurance scumbags would have enough sense not to scam a sitting U.S. Senator if they wanted to get away with such big criminal conspiracy. 
The Presidential Katrina briefing video leaked to Associated Press and now making the rounds hides the truth about what happened to New Orleans' levees in plain sight. The National Weather Center's Max Mayfield tell George W. Bush and Michael Brown in the video "I don't think anyone can tell you with any confidence right now whether the levees will be topped or not, but that is obviously a very very grave concern "
Deutsche Presse-Agentur: 
From MyPetGoat.tv: 
FEED
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C-SPAN REALVIDEO HERE