Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin indicted

[Pogo]

I'm sure you like to pretend that. Meanwhile, you're making excuses for Nagin.

Dood, there is no excuse for Nagin. I don't need to make that point; everybody in N'awlins has known that for years. What I did here was demonstrate how your one-photo-pony don't trot. You seem to have a penchant for superficial research, so I'm here to help until you can do it on your own. To hell with Nagin's legacy; I care about the idea of not playing loosely with the facts.

Nor do I need to "pretend" to see armchair political pundits trying to use a natural disaster they didn't even see as a political football. That's obvious. The uninformed are jumping on Nagin because they're still under the impression he was a "Democrat". Other wags keep bringing up George Bush in defensive postures even when no one else mentioned him. The entire population of New Orleans has been painted here as "libtards" and "Democraps". It's all a game to the opportunists. Even now I see a certain Bassethound up there trying to shift the blame away from the Army Corps of Engineers (they have an "R" in their name so they must be Republicans?)...*

Natural disasters are not political footballs. Why is this thread hung up on Katrina rather than on the substance of the OP - the indictment?
.
.

*To that Army Corps thing...
The Corps betrayed New Orleans in a number of ways. Its flood walls played matador defense because they were badly designed and badly engineered, then built in soggy soils in the wrong locations; the commander of the Corps, General Carl Strock, admitted his agency's "catastrophic failure" and submitted his resignation nine months after the storm, long after the nation had stopped paying attention. The Corps also exposed New Orleans to storm surges by manhandling and straitjacketing the Mississippi River over the past 80 years, blocking the flow of silt to southern Louisiana, gradually sinking the Big Easy below sea level and destroying a third of the coastal wetlands and barrier islands that once provided the city's natural hurricane protection. -- Time

I don't care what Nagin's politics are. He failed. He didn't follow his own city's emergency response plan, which included the use of school buses. His incompetence killed people.

You say you're not, but you're whitewashing his legacy.

Good luck with that.

Read your own link; it doesn't even mention school buses.

Look, I outlined all this backthread; I have greener pastures than to rehash it all over again. I don't think you're qualified to reconstruct an event you weren't there for based on what you can find on the internets. K?

 

[Pogo]

Nagin's an idiot... yet sadly, unless the trial is held outside NOLA... the idiots in Orleans Parish will probably give him a pass... they are that stupid.

You think? I don't know anybody in Orleans Parish that would give him the time of day any more.

I think of him whenever I see those goofy-ass parking meters he left to mark his territory...

 

[Soggy in NOLA]

Nagin's an idiot... yet sadly, unless the trial is held outside NOLA... the idiots in Orleans Parish will probably give him a pass... they are that stupid.

You think? I don't know anybody in Orleans Parish that would give him the time of day any more.

I think of him whenever I see those goofy-ass parking meters he left to mark his territory...

Yep... I think they'd be far more likely finding jurors that would side with him.

 

[daveman]

Dood, there is no excuse for Nagin. I don't need to make that point; everybody in N'awlins has known that for years. What I did here was demonstrate how your one-photo-pony don't trot. You seem to have a penchant for superficial research, so I'm here to help until you can do it on your own. To hell with Nagin's legacy; I care about the idea of not playing loosely with the facts.

Nor do I need to "pretend" to see armchair political pundits trying to use a natural disaster they didn't even see as a political football. That's obvious. The uninformed are jumping on Nagin because they're still under the impression he was a "Democrat". Other wags keep bringing up George Bush in defensive postures even when no one else mentioned him. The entire population of New Orleans has been painted here as "libtards" and "Democraps". It's all a game to the opportunists. Even now I see a certain Bassethound up there trying to shift the blame away from the Army Corps of Engineers (they have an "R" in their name so they must be Republicans?)...*

Natural disasters are not political footballs. Why is this thread hung up on Katrina rather than on the substance of the OP - the indictment?
.
.

*To that Army Corps thing...
The Corps betrayed New Orleans in a number of ways. Its flood walls played matador defense because they were badly designed and badly engineered, then built in soggy soils in the wrong locations; the commander of the Corps, General Carl Strock, admitted his agency's "catastrophic failure" and submitted his resignation nine months after the storm, long after the nation had stopped paying attention. The Corps also exposed New Orleans to storm surges by manhandling and straitjacketing the Mississippi River over the past 80 years, blocking the flow of silt to southern Louisiana, gradually sinking the Big Easy below sea level and destroying a third of the coastal wetlands and barrier islands that once provided the city's natural hurricane protection. -- Time

I don't care what Nagin's politics are. He failed. He didn't follow his own city's emergency response plan, which included the use of school buses. His incompetence killed people.

You say you're not, but you're whitewashing his legacy.

Good luck with that.

Read your own link; it doesn't even mention school buses.

This one does:

Controversy over whether New Orleans Mayor failed to follow hurricane plan - Wikinews, the free news source

In the days leading up to Hurricane Katrina, hundreds of buses were sitting in bus yards, some less than a mile from the Superdome. Louisiana Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco commented, "The buses could have saved an estimated 20,000 people if they had been used for emergency evacuations which President Bush had declared two days before Katrina hit.", however the evacuation was ordered by Mayor Nagin, President Bush having no direct authority to order evacuations. Thursday, after the storm, Blanco by executive order used school buses for evacuation.
The 2000 edition of the southeast Louisiana evacuation plan on page 13, paragraph 5 states:
5. The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles. School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating.
There were however alternative emergency plans, including ones held by state Homeland Security offices, and it is unclear which one was being operated to.
The Superdome had been opened shortly before the storm as a shelter of last resort for those who had not evacuated. As FEMA observed at that time: "Most residents have evacuated the city and those left behind do not have transportation or have special needs." Roughly 150,000 people were not evacuated from the city. During the Hurricane Ivan evacuation 600,000 people failed to evacute the city.
According to WWLTV, during a news conference on Sunday before the hurricane struck, Mayor Nagin claimed he "could and would commandeer any property or vehicle it deemed necessary to provide safe shelter or transport for those in need". However photos circulated appear to show unused school and privately owned busses left stranded in flood waters.

--

In a radio interview on WWL-AM shortly after the hurricane, Mayor Nagin said, " I need 500 buses, man. We ain't talking about -- you know, one of the briefings we had, they were talking about getting public school bus drivers to come down here and bus people out here. I'm like, "You got to be kidding me. This is a national disaster. Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get their asses moving to New Orleans." "​

Nagin said he would have done it. So why didn't he?

Oh, yes -- he was incompetent. He thought it would be quicker to drive Greyhound buses to NOLA than to get school bus drivers already in NOLA to drive those school buses.

And driving a school bus isn't that hard.

Bus comandeered by renegade refugees first to arrive here - Houston Chronicle

Look, I outlined all this backthread; I have greener pastures than to rehash it all over again. I don't think you're qualified to reconstruct an event you weren't there for based on what you can find on the internets. K?

Oh, and you were there in Nagin's office the whole time?

Please.

You've lost this argument.

 

[Wehrwolfen]

Oh, the city corruption was long before Katrina. The city government refused to allocate any monies toward improving the levies years before Katrina, even with the Corps of Engineers' strong recommendations. The Discovery Channel (or some channel like that) even did a documentary about the levies and the city government years before Katrina.

Funny, I haven't seen that documentary since, cuz, ya know, GWB was in office and shit.

I was supposed to be there. All my babies, my kennel and then Katrina rolled in and changed my life. I still dream about it.

Katrina changed lives.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~​

By Ken Silverstein and Josh Meyer
Times Staff Writers

September 17, 2005

WASHINGTON - 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.

Much of the FEMA money that was unaccounted for was sent to Louisiana under the Hazard Mitigation Grant program, intended to help states retrofit property and improve flood control facilities, for example.

The $30.4 million FEMA is demanding back was money paid into that program and others, including a program to buy out flood-prone homeowners. As much as $30 million in additional unaccounted for spending also is under review in audits that have not yet been released, according to a FEMA official.

One 2003 federal investigation of allegedly misspent funds in Ouachita Parish, a district in northern Louisiana, grew into a probe that sprawled into more than 20 other parishes.

Mark Smith, a spokesman for the Louisiana emergency office, said the agency had responded to calls for reform, and that "we now have the policy and personnel in place to ensure that past problems aren't repeated."

Read more:
How Clinton Stole New Orleans Evacuation Plan Money

 

[depotoo]

That's not excusing Nagin's incompetence. It's showcasing that of your research. That journalistic onanism that divides the world into red and blue teams and then flails about to put points on its own scoreboard.

I'm sure you like to pretend that. Meanwhile, you're making excuses for Nagin.

Dood, there is no excuse for Nagin. I don't need to make that point; everybody in N'awlins has known that for years. What I did here was demonstrate how your one-photo-pony don't trot. You seem to have a penchant for superficial research, so I'm here to help until you can do it on your own. To hell with Nagin's legacy; I care about the idea of not playing loosely with the facts.

Nor do I need to "pretend" to see armchair political pundits trying to use a natural disaster they didn't even see as a political football. That's obvious. The uninformed are jumping on Nagin because they're still under the impression he was a "Democrat". Other wags keep bringing up George Bush in defensive postures even when no one else mentioned him. The entire population of New Orleans has been painted here as "libtards" and "Democraps". It's all a game to the opportunists. Even now I see a certain Bassethound up there trying to shift the blame away from the Army Corps of Engineers (they have an "R" in their name so they must be Republicans?)...*

Natural disasters are not political footballs. Why is this thread hung up on Katrina rather than on the substance of the OP - the indictment?
.
.

*To that Army Corps thing...
The Corps betrayed New Orleans in a number of ways. Its flood walls played matador defense because they were badly designed and badly engineered, then built in soggy soils in the wrong locations; the commander of the Corps, General Carl Strock, admitted his agency's "catastrophic failure" and submitted his resignation nine months after the storm, long after the nation had stopped paying attention. The Corps also exposed New Orleans to storm surges by manhandling and straitjacketing the Mississippi River over the past 80 years, blocking the flow of silt to southern Louisiana, gradually sinking the Big Easy below sea level and destroying a third of the coastal wetlands and barrier islands that once provided the city's natural hurricane protection. -- Time

doesn't matter what the corp did, it was pretty much known that the levees wouldn't hold for a cat 5 pushing water into the lake. Even though its cat was reduced prior to landfall, that did not mitigate the water already being pushed ahead of it.
This article was run in the the Times Picayune, Coastal Land Loss: Hurricanes and New Orleans - Ivor L. van Heerden, Ph.D. - New Orleans - A City in Peril - Public Health Impacts of a Major Tropical Storm
as well as the Hurricane Pam exercise was used to hopefully help the city and areas realize what could happen and how to implement plans to help mitigate the death and destruction, if that worst case were to occur. One of the workshops was even held in New Orleans just awhile before Katrina even hit.
http://www.lsu.edu/catalogs/2004/pdfs/CH1220 Research - Faculty Resources.pdf
http://www.hsgac.senate.gov//imo/media/doc/012406Beriwal.pdf?attempt=2

Hurricane Pam Phase 1B
Hurricane Pam Phase 1B was conducted July 25–29, 2005, in New Orleans, and was
attended by 100 officials. This workshop focused again on Temporary Housing and
addressed a new topic: Transportation, Staging, and Distribution of Critical Resources.

Now, what is it you want to talk about re: the corruption of Nagin?

 

[Pogo]

I'm sure you like to pretend that. Meanwhile, you're making excuses for Nagin.

Dood, there is no excuse for Nagin. I don't need to make that point; everybody in N'awlins has known that for years. What I did here was demonstrate how your one-photo-pony don't trot. You seem to have a penchant for superficial research, so I'm here to help until you can do it on your own. To hell with Nagin's legacy; I care about the idea of not playing loosely with the facts.

Nor do I need to "pretend" to see armchair political pundits trying to use a natural disaster they didn't even see as a political football. That's obvious. The uninformed are jumping on Nagin because they're still under the impression he was a "Democrat". Other wags keep bringing up George Bush in defensive postures even when no one else mentioned him. The entire population of New Orleans has been painted here as "libtards" and "Democraps". It's all a game to the opportunists. Even now I see a certain Bassethound up there trying to shift the blame away from the Army Corps of Engineers (they have an "R" in their name so they must be Republicans?)...*

Natural disasters are not political footballs. Why is this thread hung up on Katrina rather than on the substance of the OP - the indictment?
.
.

*To that Army Corps thing...
The Corps betrayed New Orleans in a number of ways. Its flood walls played matador defense because they were badly designed and badly engineered, then built in soggy soils in the wrong locations; the commander of the Corps, General Carl Strock, admitted his agency's "catastrophic failure" and submitted his resignation nine months after the storm, long after the nation had stopped paying attention. The Corps also exposed New Orleans to storm surges by manhandling and straitjacketing the Mississippi River over the past 80 years, blocking the flow of silt to southern Louisiana, gradually sinking the Big Easy below sea level and destroying a third of the coastal wetlands and barrier islands that once provided the city's natural hurricane protection. -- Time

doesn't matter what the corp did, it was pretty much known that the levees wouldn't hold for a cat 5 pushing water into the lake. Even though its cat was reduced prior to landfall, that did not mitigate the water already being pushed ahead of it.
This article was run in the the Times Picayune, Coastal Land Loss: Hurricanes and New Orleans - Ivor L. van Heerden, Ph.D. - New Orleans - A City in Peril - Public Health Impacts of a Major Tropical Storm
as well as the Hurricane Pam exercise was used to hopefully help the city and areas realize what could happen and how to implement plans to help mitigate the death and destruction, if that worst case were to occur. One of the workshops was even held in New Orleans just awhile before Katrina even hit.
http://www.lsu.edu/catalogs/2004/pdfs/CH1220 Research - Faculty Resources.pdf
http://www.hsgac.senate.gov//imo/media/doc/012406Beriwal.pdf?attempt=2

Hurricane Pam Phase 1B
Hurricane Pam Phase 1B was conducted July 25–29, 2005, in New Orleans, and was
attended by 100 officials. This workshop focused again on Temporary Housing and
addressed a new topic: Transportation, Staging, and Distribution of Critical Resources.

Now, what is it you want to talk about re: the corruption of Nagin?

Nagin's corruption was supposed to be the topic of this thread.

Whatever all that other jazz is up there, I don't know what the point is. Or how it relates.