The Violence Worker!

George W. Bush To Finish The Job!

This just in to the Violence Worker Newsroom:

IP (Idiotic Press) - EXTREMELY URGENT - Washington DC Bureau - We have learned that George W. Bush is heading for Texas to personally take command of the Federal Extermination of Minorities Agency (FEMA) in order to ensure no minority survives Hurricane Gustav. 

President Bush stated before boarding Air Force One that with Katrina, Michael Brown botched the job and he will be taking personal command of his last attempt at destroying the minority population of New Orleans.

Karl Rove, who left the White House to over see the increase in global warming required to generate a catastrophic storm was elated.  "We have a winner here with Gustav and it is fitting that the name has that goose-steppy kind of allure.  We worked hard to have it start during Obama's party, but as good as we are, we still can't get these things started exactly when we want."

Vice-President Cheney was much more upbeat about Gustav's timing.  "This will be a lot more fun than the convention!", said Mr. Cheney.

The Democratic Presumptive nominee, Barack Obama said through his spokesman that this would turn out to be just another Republican failure and that this would ensure that Bush would not have a third term.  He added that if he is elected, he will flood Utah to kill off the white Mormon population. 

He said, "We'll show the Republicans we know how to conduct genocide!.  This is an issue we can defeat Bush on!"
----------------------------------------------

Someone had to do it!

VW

Different Priorities

Back last August, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin handed the Parish Coroner, Frank Minyard, a million dollars of your money to build a monument to the 1600 or so people who died from hurricane Katrina related causes.  The goal was to have it built by this coming August 29th, the third anniversary.  As you might expect, nothing was done.  Hopefully, given the city's reputation for corruption, that money is still sitting in a bank account somewhere drawing interest.

From the Dallas News:

During a second-anniversary ceremony, Mayor Ray Nagin shed a tear, gave $1 million in taxpayer money to the project, and delegated management to the city coroner.

"This is an example of the dead helping the living," said New Orleans Parish Coroner Frank Minyard. "The underprivileged African-American community suffered worst in this storm, and we have to make sure for the next storm that it doesn't happen again. Hopefully, this memorial will be a reminder of that."

But 10 months later, what could have been an inspiring focal point for New Orleans has dissolved into a project that is forgotten, frustrated and delayed.

Where is the project at today?

Two days after The Associated Press asked about its status, LSU signed off on a city permit to allow topsoil clearing, but no date was given. Workers later drove a pattern of stakes into the ground and drew an outline with fluorescent paint.

It's a start, but that is all.  It isn't even a good start really. 

I think it would be really interesting to see where the money has been spent so far and how much private money (allegedly this is supposed to be funded primarily by donations) is in the bank.  I'm not saying that anything illegal is going on, but this is New Orleans and I'm just sayin...

Seriously, regardless if the money is being used well or disappearing into black holes somewhere, it's a colossal waste of taxpayer money.  It's not that I am against some kind of memorial for the victims.  It's an age old tradition.  We seek closure and that is one of the ways we find it.  Usually that's the last act, the finale after we've cleaned up the mess and rebuilt.  To allocate a million dollars of tax money to this project before even half of this mess is cleaned up is an insult and a travesty to those still trying to recover.

I'm not even sure why we are wasting money even trying to rebuild parts of the city when in all likelihood, we will be doing it again before too many years have passed.  Even still, to divert money to a this project instead of using it to strengthen the levees or help rebuild housing, or even hire more police is ludicrous! 

I think if I were the mayor, my priorities would be a little different.

VW

Are We Spinning Out Of Control?

A few days ago, there was a piece that circulated news outlets that has been on my mind.  It was an opinion piece that asked if the US was spinning out of control.

Midwestern levees are bursting. Polar bears are adrift. Gas prices are skyrocketing. Home values are abysmal. Air fares, college tuition and health care border on unaffordable. Wars without end rage in Iraq, Afghanistan and against terrorism.

The can-do, bootstrap approach embedded in the American psyche is under assault. Eroding it is a dour powerlessness that's chipping away at America's sturdy conviction that destiny can be commanded with sheer courage and perseverance.

In some ways we are spinning out of control.  Weather and floods happen with varying frequency.  We get beat up for awhile and then things seem to level off.  It's not the first time floods have battered the Mississippi heartland nor is it uncommon for the south and southeast to be battered by hurricanes.  We've lived through droughts before and we've survived earthquakes in the past.  Who knows what tomorrow will bring?  It's enough to depress even the most cheerful among us. 

The writer's of that piece are most likely liberal.  It's surprising then that they would write that last paragraph.  It amazes me that they can write such an insight and then go on to suggest that it's the government's fault for not fixing everything.

And that is my point.  We are spinning and if we don't get some kind of handle on things, we will soon be out of control.  It's not the disasters that are propelling the spin, it's the nanny state.

America's "can-do, bootstrap approach" is disappearing because we are increasingly demanding that the President and Congress take care of us.  The dirty truth is simply that they cannot and as long as we expect them to take care of us, we will continue on this downward spiral.

When Katrina happened, government at all levels was cited for a myriad of failures.  Never mind the devastation was just not New Orleans.  Katrina affected an area the size of Minnesota.  Whole towns disappeared. But should you reasonably expect the government to give you immediate aid?  Should you expect the taxpayers to completely rebuild your life at no cost to you?  The problem with Katrina was not just one of government failure, it was also one of individual failure times thousands.  There are still hundreds of people living in hotels on our dime almost three years later!   There is no "can-do" here! 

Anyone who expects any government aid within in at least the first 72 hours is delusional, I don't care how well oiled the FEMA machine appears to be. 

Gone from our collective consciousness are the words of President John F. Kennedy:  " And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country."  More often than not, people aren't asking the the government to do anything - they are demanding it and threaten to hit the streets rioting if they don't get it.

What did we do 50 or 75 years ago when a disaster hit?  There was no FEMA.  There was no organized government relief effort. 911 hadn't been invented.   We relied upon each other.  We came together as a community and did what we could do.  We banded together as Americans because as Americans, we could rebuild. 

I'm not saying that government doesn't have a place.  Certainly, with the advent of such things as FEMA, we've been able to do more to save lives and rebuild quicker.  The problem is that now, we expect government to do it all.  Why can't we set up some sort of program based upon the Habitat for Humanity model?  Let the people rebuild, but let them help.  Most people can do at least something to help themselves.

Sadly, we are no longer that nation that will do that.  We have lost our sense of community. There are pockets of America that still believe in doing for themselves and still have the ability to pull the community together, but they are fewer and fewer.  The people affected by the Mississippi floods are doing it.  Sure they are getting help, but they are also doing a lot for themselves and helping each other as they sandbag the levees.  Most of the rest of the country now expects a total free ride. 

We are spinning and all the Democrats are offering is to spin us that faster.  The lesson of JFK is forgotten and we never learned this lesson from President Reagan:  "Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem." and this from President Ford:  "A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have."

The only way we will regain control is a return to our roots of self-reliance and less dependence on the handout.  I'm not sure if we will ever be able to shrug off big government.

I fear for our future.  I fear for my children and I especially fear for my grandchildren.

VW

Why Leave?

Your tax dollars are still paying for Katrina victims to live in hotels and motels.  They live in the relative lap of luxury with apparently no incentive to move on.  They sit in air conditioned comfort in their room with the temp set at 60 degrees, or they go down to the pool and lounge around to beat the Gulf Coast heat.  They get three meals a day catered in.

From NBC Channel 15 in Biloxi:

The scorching heat puts many at the Quality Inn poolside, but for Gwenester Malone, she chooses to beat the heat by setting her thermostat to sixty degrees. Malone's room for the past three months, along with three meals daily, have all been paid for by taxpayers.

"Do you work?" asked NBC 15's Andrea Ramey.

"No. I'm not working right now," said Malone.

Malone says she can't drive and it's too hot outside to find work within walking distance.  "Since the storm, I haven't had any energy or pep to go get a job, but when push comes to shove, I will," said Malone.

Why should she?  This woman is admitting she isn't even looking for a job!!  It's too hot and she hasn't got any "energy or pep"!  How sad.

One gal is apparently had enough:

Just a few blocks away, Kelley Christian also stays at a hotel for free. She says she's not taking advantage of her situation, but admits it's easy to do. "It's too easy. You know, once you're there, you don't have to pay rent," said Christian. "I kept putting it off and putting it off and now, I'm tired of putting it off."

She says she'll be out of the hotel and in an apartment by the end of the month. Push came to shove for Christian when police found a meth lab in a hotel room directly below her.  "All kind of people in white suits pulled all kind of chemicals out here. There was enough to line up about three cars worth of chemicals. It scared the heck of me," said Christian.

Well at least push arrived at shove station for this woman, but what about our other gal?

As for Malone, she says she's not seeing any drug activity at her hotel. It's too nice she says. Why would she want to leave?

Indeed!  Why would she want to leave.  She is a free room with free food!  It doesn't get any better than that, I suppose. 

Apparently FEMA wouldn't disclose how many people are getting this service and probably with good reason.

Realistically, FEMA  probably sees it as cheaper than a dozen ACLU lawsuits if they try and push them out.  You know that would happen the minute FEMA tried to assert some reason into this mess.

Ten to one Malone complains about the maid service.

VW

But Bush Isn't Running!

A liberal group wants to raise over 8 million dollars to defeat Bush in the next election.  The problem is, Bush isn't running.

WASHINGTON —  A liberal advocacy group plans to spend $8.5 million in a drive to make sure President Bush's public approval doesn't improve as his days in the White House come to an end.

Americans United for Change plans to undertake a yearlong campaign, spending the bulk of the money on advertising, to keep public attention on what the group says are the failures of the Bush administration, including the war in Iraq, the response to Hurricane Katrina, and the current mortgage crisis.

This borders on the psychotic!!!!   This is Bush Derangement Syndrome at its lowest and most vile form.

OK, they don't like Bush.  Old news.  What it is is a waste of money and time, but that matters not a whit to the moonbats.  All they have is hatred. 

They want to hammer on what they perceive as failures. But why don't they raise 8 million to actually help people.   Maybe they could do Katrina relief.  They could repair a bunch of homes or help rebuild one of the 22 fire houses in New Orleans.  They could use it to help some wounded vets.  They could use it to help buy some healthcare for some sick kids.

But liberals don't do that.  They raise money for politcial causes so that the Democrats can spend YOUR tax money on those things.

Liberals don't really give a damn about Katrina victims.  They just hate Bush and they are willing to waste 8.5 million bucks to prove it.

VW

The Louisiana Trend

Conventional wisdom is as useless a term as most of the buzz words that float by us in company staff meeting.  You all know what I'm talking about.  When some hot shot gets up in a meeting and starts talking about the "genesis of the current synergy causing a network centric organization yada-yada...", you go to your happy place because you know in two weeks, none of those words will ever be used in the same sentence again - if at all.  The same with "conventional wisdom".  It's only conventional until the next thing comes along.  Today's conventional wisdom is usually yesterdays wrong assumption.

Such is the case with the so-called conventional wisdom coming from the Economist.

WHEN it comes to the business of elections, Louisiana likes to confound conventional wisdom. While most of its Southern neighbours were busy electing Republicans during the early 2000s, Louisiana stubbornly returned a Democrat, Mary Landrieu, to the Senate in 2002, and put another one, Kathleen Blanco, in the governor's mansion in 2003. Now, as Republican fortunes have sagged across the nation—in no small part because of the Bush administration's failure to cope with Hurricane Katrina's devastation of Louisiana's coast in 2005—the party is having a banner year in the state.

No where in the article does it tell you why Louisiana is bucking the trend.  It goes on to cite with  surprise that the Bubbas (can we consider that a derogatory term yet?) would vote for a "non-white" to be governor.  The systemic corruption of the Louisiana Democrat machine and that Mr. Jindal is young, smart (he's a Rhode's Scholar) and that the demographics of New Orleans have shifted a bit, but the author gives no real reason why the state is supposedly bucking the trend.  Bush's supposed "failure to cope", recognized by everyone else, doesn't seem to register with those who were the victims.

Let me tell you what I think (You knew I would or you wouldn't have read this far - that's conventional wisdom!) the reason Louisiana is bucking the trend.  I have two reasons.

First is the fact that while FEMA may have dropped the ball, the local governments (all Democrat) and the Governor (another Democrat) never had a ball.  Hell, they never even made it to the ballpark!  Evacuation orders were never given and when they were (much too late) they were haphazard at best.  Governor Blanco diddled and dithered in requesting federal troops (Something she must do - the constitution prohibits sending Federal Troops without permission of the Governor).  And while the congress and the President sent them billions upon billions for reconstruction, Blanco managed to again, sit on her hands.

Second is the systemic corruption in Louisiana.  Louisiana is the butt of a lot of jokes but the sad part is that this isn't a joke.  Incompetence and corruption run rampant.  New Orleans is a city in decay and has slowly been rotting away for the last few decades.  The 9th Ward was a cesspool that no mayor ever cared to do anything about before the floods and all of a sudden, they want it all fixed now.  Nagin has proved to be incompetent.  Whether he is corrupt or not, I don't know, but his predecessor Marc Morial is under investigation.  In short, New Orleans is one step away from being a third world crap hole because of the endemic corruption.  All the tourists see is the French Quarter.

Incompetence and corruption are the two key elements holding back the reconstruction the coast.  Louisianans know it and that is why they voted for Bobby Jindal.  That is why they are going red.

In short, they are tired of the Democrats and their emmpty promises to clean out city haul.

Mr. Jindal has a huge task in front of him and he will face a lot of opposition from the corrupt Democrats still entrenched.  He's their best chance ever to throw off  the yoke of institutional corruption that is crushing Louisiana

VW

Again, a tip of the old porkpie to the Diary of the Mad Pigeon for open track backs

Bye-Bye Blanco

Last night, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco announced she won't be running for re-election.  Good.  The woman is incompetent.  She's as much or more to blame for the Katrina mess as anyone.  She failed to implement the state's evacuation plans and immediately afterward tied up federal aid in the form of troops for hours while she played politics.  Her "Road Home" program has slowed billions of federal aid to a snail's pace.  Recent polls have showed that she is about as popular as a skunk at a garden party.

"I am doing this so we can work without interference from election year politics," she said in a televised appearance from the governor's mansion Tuesday evening.

Which is politico speak for "I don't have a snowball's chance in Hell to be re-elected."

Now, if they can just get rid of that albatross known as Ray Nagin, New Orleans might have a chance.

VW

New Orleans: The Road OUT

As promised, another installment in my discussion about New Orleans and the problems the city faces in trying to rebuild and indeed, whether they even should rebuild.

There is a news item that caught my eye late yesterday about New Orleans.

New Orleans on Brink of Exodus

NEW ORLEANS Feb 9, 2007 (AP)— New Orleans is a city on a knife's edge. A year and a half after Hurricane Katrina, an alarming number of residents are leaving or seriously thinking of getting out for good.

They have become fed up with the violence, the bureaucracy, the political finger-pointing, the sluggish rebuilding and the doubts about the safety of the levees.

"The mayor says, `Come back home. Every area should come back.' For what?" said Genevieve Bellow, who rebuilt her home in heavily damaged eastern New Orleans but has been unable to get anything done about the trash and abandoned apartment buildings in her neighborhood and may leave town. "I have no confidence in anything or anybody."

A survey released in November found that 32 percent of city residents polled may leave within two years. University of New Orleans political scientist Susan Howell, who did the survey, said more will give up if the recovery does not pick up speed.

I can certainly understand the frustration, but at the same time, I get the feeling that people think that only government money should be used to rebuild.  AFter reading this article (it's a long one), I'm left with the feeling that private efforts to rebuild are not even considered, or at least not with any sense of urgency or seriousness.

Blanco's Road Home program, born 10 months after the storm, has been vilified by politicians and civic leaders as too slow to distribute $7.5 billion in federal aid to buy out homeowners or help them rebuild. As of Feb. 5, Road Home had taken 105,739 applications and resolved only 532 cases, granting $33.8 million. At the current rate, Road Home would take more than 13 years to complete.

To be fair, I would assume they are trying to take steps to make sure the money is dispersed properly and to people authorized to have it.  The feds, criticized for not helping quickly, sped up the handout process and consequently discovered a bunch of the money went to some who shouldn't have gotten it.

So far, the federal government has earmarked about $750 million for infrastructure projects. The state homeland security department, charged with distributing the money, has given out only about half that. The governor said the city has been slow to complete the paperwork.

It was that kind of back-and-forth that prompted Ken White and his wife, Kathy, to give up and move to New York last year.

"We came back a month after the flood and thought about what we could do to stay and rebuild, but it became apparent to us it would take a long time and be very difficult," said White, who was director of emergency psychiatry at Charity Hospital when Katrina hit. "We were appalled by the ineptitude of government on all levels."

Mr. White doesn't realize it, probably, but he hit the ball out of the park with his observation about government ineptitude.  By their very nature, government bureaucracies at every level are extremely inefficient at handling the tax payer dollar.  Red Tape is the product of regulation. 

Now I ask again, is it really worth rebuilding?  If you read the entire article, it's seems like rebuilding is a fool's quest.

The crime problem is impossible.  Years of Democrat corruption coupled with two sizable hurricanes almost back to back has led to the current situation where crime is out of control and little or no hope of controlling it without resorting to KGB tactics.

I'm well aware of the historical significance of New Orleans, but common sense says that if it's broken beyond reasonable repair, it really isn't worth fixing.

And another thing.  Let's say we do manage to get a handle on the murderers and violent crime, what happens in a few years when we have to go through all of this again? 

New Orleans is fast becoming a third world crap hole.  If it is to survive in some way, the neighborhoods will have to be broken up and the people relocated and the criminals locked away. If we leave it as it is now, we may as well just build a fence around it and forget it. It's obvious to me that the residents of the poorer neighborhoods really can't or won't help themselves by helping the police.  The state might help by sending in the National Guard, state police and an army of prosecutors but I doubt Blanco has the political will or the resources to do that. 

Really, seriously, maybe the bulldozer's blade isn't such a bad idea. 

VW

The Quagmire That Is New Orleans

Last week, using a bit of purposeful hyperbole, I suggested that we bulldoze New Orleans.  That seemed to light off a bit of a firestorm and it was picked up by a couple of leftists and the hate mail began.  I was called all kinds of names, chief among them was "racist".

But who is the real racist here?  If you have a rat infestation, you clean it out.  You remove their food source and habitat to keep them from coming back.  I would suggest that in NOLA, we have a rat infestation. It's a rat pack of drug dealers and gangster that rule  the streets while the police and the justice system watch as if the waters of Katrina rusted tight their moving parts - if they ever had any.

Of the 161 murders tallied in the Big Easy, 131 or 81 percent, were black on black murders.  Young black men are killing each other at an alarming rate.  The police blame the prosecutors and the prosecutors blame the police.

Source:

There were 161 homicides in this city last year, and there have been 18 so far this year, making New Orleans by most measures the nation's per capita murder capital, given its sharply reduced population. Many of the victims and the suspects are teenagers. About two-thirds of the deaths have gone unsolved: The killers, in many cases, continue to walk the streets and are likely to kill again, the police say.

Other cities have plenty of murders. But only in New Orleans has there been the uniquely poisoned set of circumstances that has led to this city's position at the top of the homicide charts. Every phase of the killing cycle here unfolds under the dark star of dysfunction: the murderers' brutalized childhoods, the often ineffectual police intervention, a dulled community response, and a tense relationship between the police and prosecutors that lets many cases slip through the cracks.

Hurricane Katrina's devastation loosened the fragile social restraints even further, making the city perhaps more dangerous than ever.

Is it racist to look upon this quagmire and come to the conclusion that this will not get fixed?  You could put a cop on every street corner and double the amount of prosecutors and judges and this problem would not go away.  The reality of the situation also says that there isn't enough money to hire all the police and prosecutors, even if that would cure the problem.

There is no easy solutions.  Perhaps the bulldozer's blade is one part of the answer.  Raze it to raise it.  If we truly want to help people out of this cauldron of crap, maybe we need to destroy the cauldron.  Handouts are not the answer.  Dependency will not foster a recovery, it will fester the problem. 

In some neighborhoods, people refer to "misdemeanor murders," or "60-day murders," the length of time suspects can be held without charges. The police superintendent, Warren J. Riley, often blames prosecutors for refusing other cases and the courts for letting violent suspects out on bail. Though Riley declined to be interviewed for this article, he recently told the local newspaper Gambit Weekly that he was tired of having to re-arrest the same people who had been let out of jail.

"We can't be as successful fighting crime as we would like to be until the rest of the criminal justice system works like it's supposed to work," Riley told the newspaper. "We have to keep hard-core felons in jail."

But the district attorney, Eddie Jordan, and several judges say that shoddy police work, and a general mistrust of officers by witnesses and jurors, doom many cases. Witnesses also fear retaliation on the street.

"It's an insurmountable problem," Jordan said. "By the time the investigative report is presented to our office, a good number of witnesses are no longer available or have gotten afraid to testify. That's the biggest problem in murder cases."

And even as city and federal officials announce new anti-crime measures, doubts persist.

Terry Q. Alarcon, a longtime criminal court judge, said, "The criminal justice system has always had two major problems: a lack of funding and a lack of cooperation."

The message here is simple.  It's broken and it can't be fixed.  The dysfunction is so deep and so entrenched, it's doubtful any traditional fixes will work. 

If we want to stop the killing, then radical solutions are needed.  Nothing will be cheap and a solution could be to disperse the population to other areas, providing them with temporary help and even training; to get them settled and provide them with some sort of basic education and training  so that they can become employable and productive might not be such a bad idea.  Those who persist in criminal activities should be locked away.

What would be racist is to spend good money after bad and perpetuate this little pocket of a third world crap hole.

I would be happy to discuss with anyone what they think is a solution.  I'm open.  I just think that allowing this to continue is more racist then bulldozing it and starting over.

VW

Bulldoze New Orleans

I'm tired of New Orleans.  I'm tired of paying for it and I'm really tired of Nagin's and Blanco's whining.

NEW ORLEANS (CNN) -- About half of New Orleans' residents have returned since Hurricane Katrina, but red tape and race and class issues have held up recovery efforts, Mayor Ray Nagin said Monday.

"I'm not asking for more money," Nagin told a Senate panel. "I just want the money you've already allocated to my citizens to help them."

He and other officials involved in reconstruction efforts appeared before a Senate "field hearing" on Gulf Coast reconstruction efforts, 17 months after Katrina devastated coastal Louisiana and Mississippi.

He said analysts at the University of New Orleans and a private research firm estimate the storm-ravaged city's population at between 230,000 and 250,000 -- little more than half its pre-Katrina population of about 455,000.

Those who have come back face a shortage of inhabitable homes and a spike in violent crime, which Nagin said police are working to address.

He said Katrina exposed "an ugly underbelly" of poverty, particularly among the area's black population, and he questioned whether the country had "the will to fix it."

"I think it's more class than anything, but there are racial issues associated with it also," Nagin said.

It has nothing to do with race or class or any other lame-assed excuse the incompetent Mr. Nagin can come up with. 

Katrina didn't expose any "ugly underbelly".  It's always been there.  NOLA's problems have been a matter of record.  It has boasted one of the highest murder rates and one of the worst gang problems in the country.

You can't blame this stuff on Bush or the Republicans.  At some point, the fingers have to point right back home.  New Orleans is a Democrat town and Louisiana's governor has been a Democrat since 1877 with two exceptions - 1980-1984and 1996-2004.

Nagin suggested the war in Iraq, which has now cost about $400 billion, has drawn money and attention away from hurricane relief.

"I hear all these numbers, the hundreds of billions of dollars that are flowing. I hear the arguments about why they're not flowing, and then I look what we're doing in Iraq and how we can spend money at an unprecedented level there," he said.

Landrieu, who has been appointed to lead a subcommittee that will oversee the pace of reconstruction work, said that when the administration submits an expected supplemental spending bill to pay for the nearly 4-year-old Iraq war, "there better be funding to rebuild Louisiana and Mississippi."

Why?  So another storm can blow in and give a repeat performance?  I'm sorry, but I'm tired of the whining.  Why should we throw good money after bad?  As far as I'm concerned, you can bulldoze the whole damn town.

Let private development rebuild the place if they want to, but leave my money out of it. 

And what guarantees do I get, if we spend billions more, that it will be any better than it is or was?

VW

UPDATE:  Before you write your hatemail or comment calling me a racist, read this:

http://www.violenceworker.com/my_weblog/2007/01/hate_mail_over_.html