LOUISIANA CORRUPTION AND FAILURES CREATED THE KATRINA RESCUE DEBACLE

Nine months before Hurricane Katrina three Louisiana Homeland Security officials were indicted for obstucting an audit of monies directed for flood prevention, IE: the levees. News has come out today from many different sources that the Bush administration has pumped 1.5 BILLION dollars into the Louisiana levee program to up date and prepare the levees to PREVENT the disaster that has occurred. These funds have been appropriated into the Louisiana coffers over the entire 5 years of the Bush Presidency, more money than to ANY other state in the Union! Yet the levees were not fixed and the flood happened with the blame directed toward the President and not the corrupt Louisiana state government. The money was used for other state projects that garnered more votes for state and federal politicians and not to protect the citizens that lived behind the levees. Even Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu (D) used an emergency appropriations bill for the Iraq war funding by tacking on a last minute amendment to order the Civil engineers to re-evaluate a study that stated that the levees around New Orleans were in disrepair and needed to be upgraded to prevent a disaster. This amendment was to delay the distribution of the flood prevention funds by the feds in order to give the state the opportunity to use it for pork barrel, vote getting projects. Levees don't buy votes! In a related story Bill O'reiley and Shaun Hannity have revealed a Fox News report that proves that the means to get water and food to the people in the Convention Center and the Superdome were available through the Red Cross BEFORE the flood began and the state of Louisiana officials denied them entrance stating that these sites were shelters, "of last resort" and if the people were helped they would want to stay and the state did not want that. So Louisiana CHOSE to allow their own citizens to starve and die in order to keep them from staying. This is criminal!! The state of Louisiana has much to answer for and I believe that murder in the second degree is not to harsh a charge. Officials beginning with the Governor intentionally let their people suffer and even allowed this to happen through corruption within the government long before Katrina hit the coast. If the libs want to investigate what happened they need to start in their own back yard and look straight in the face of a Democrat controlled state that has for the past 60 years been the most corrupt in the nation. Katrina revealed how liberals, who claim to be the party for the minorities and care with great compassion for the individual through their own corruption killed their constituents! When the ax falls and it will those responsible on all levels in the state should pay the piper for their neglect and illegal activities that caused this outrage!

Ken Taylor