David Corn tweets, “Can I write the Hurricane-Earl-Is-Obama’s-Hurricane-Katrina piece? Or do I have to wait for Earl to make landfall? What’s protocol?”

New reports indicate that New Orleans Police were given orders to shoot looters amid the chaos after Hurricane Katrina hit the city. Fortunately, that never happened.

More bad news for the Obama Administration in a new ABC News poll about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill: By more than a 2-to-1 margin, Americans support the pursuit of criminal charges in the nation’s worst oil spill, with increasing numbers calling it a major environmental disaster. Eight in 10 criticize the way BP’s […]

I haven’t written previously about the news of the horrific earthquake that has leveled Haiti’s capital because, really, what is there to say? But a CNN Breaking News alert that, “Hundreds of thousands of people have died in Haiti’s earthquake, the prime minister told CNN today” was staggering enough to prompt a mention. The reality, […]

I’m sure I’ll see dumber stories as the day wears on but Business Insider‘s “Anderson Cooper’s Ratings Plummet” is the early morning leader. Anderson Cooper is fading in the ratings. The respected CNN anchor has seen his numbers slip significantly through the past year. His 10 p.m. show, “Anderson Cooper 360,” has declined 62% in […]

Yesterday, I complained that President Obama is using the White House website for partisan political purposes. Politico’s Andy Barr digs deeper and says it’s worse than it appears at first blush: The new White House website unveiled by President Barack Obama’s team Tuesday includes a shot at former President Bush’s response to Hurricane Katrina. Under […]

While I’m socially conservative on most issues, I’m by no stretch a Social Conservative. Yet I agree with Rod Dreher‘s rebuttal to those who argue that the salvation of the Republican Party will come from expelling the Religious Right: John McCain didn’t get his clock cleaned because of his ardent advocacy for unborn life or […]

Hurricane Gustav is barreling down on the Gulf Coast and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, who has dubbed this “the mother of all storms,” has once again ordered the evacuation of New Orleans.  Aside from the obvious humanitarian and logistical issues, this is also a huge wild card going into the GOP convention. President Bush […]

John McCain has repudiated, rejected, denounced, distanced, and otherwise made it clear that he’s not a big fan of John Hagee, who he thinks is a nut. In the face of mounting controversy over headline-grabbing statements from Pastor John Hagee, CNN has learned presumptive Republican nominee John McCain has decided to reject his endorsement. The […]

John McCain has a nice, pithy response to his endorser Rev. John Hagee’s claim that the “sins” of New Orleans and the city’s acceptance of homosexuality were the reasons why God punished the City by sending Hurricane Katrina: “It’s nonsense, it’s nonsense, it’s nonsense, it’s nonsense, it’s nonsense. I dont have anything additional to say. […]

Yesterday, John McCain announced that he was “honored” to receive the endorsement of Pastor John Hagee, a Texas-based preacher who can probably be most charitably described as “pro-Apocalypse”. McCain lavished praise on him for being “pro-Israel”, but as Sarah Posner (via Matthew Yglesias) points out, what he actually stands for is the destruction of Israel […]

The New Orleans city council today defied protestors and voted unanimously to tear down the first of four remaining major housing projects in the city to make way for mixed-income housing that will accommodate some, but not all, of the pre-Katrina public housing population. Needless to say, the self-appointed community activists were displeased: The scene […]

John McCain has received all the key newspaper endorsements for the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary, despite being a non-factor in the polls in the former and trailing in the latter. The Des Moines Register backed McCain despite his being in 5th place in their own polls; apparently, they’re not so much trying to […]

Bob Novak excoriates Trent Lott for resigning from the Senate in order to cash in as a lobbyist. Members of Congress talk among themselves about “getting out to make some money,” and they do not mean pocket change. The swollen federal government and concomitant growth of massive lobbying firms means ex-lawmakers such as Lott and […]

Trent Lott is resigning mid-term, reportedly in order to get out ahead of more restrictive ethics laws. MSNBC: NBC News has learned that Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., the minority whip is in the midst of informing close allies that he plans to resign his senate seat before the end of the year. It’s possible a […]

The idiots at FEMA stagged a fake news conference to highlight their efforts in California wildfire relief. The White House scolded the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Friday for staging a phony news conference about assistance to victims of wildfires in southern California. The agency — much maligned for its sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina […]

Bobby Jindal has been elected governor of Louisiana. U.S. Rep. Bobby Jindal became the nation’s youngest governor and the first nonwhite to hold post in Louisiana since Reconstruction when he carried more than half the vote to defeat 11 opponents. Jindal, the Republican 36-year-old son of Indian immigrants, had 53 percent with 625,036 votes with […]

The general who presided over the Abu Ghraib scandal gave a speech yesterday railing against the incompetent administration of the Iraq War. David Cloud summarizes for the NYT: In one of his first major public speeches since leaving the Army in late 2006, retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez blamed the administration for a “catastrophically […]

The next episode of OTB Radio, our BlogTalkRadio program, will record and air live tonight from 7-8 Eastern. The show will return to Wednesdays next week. I’ll be joined tonight by my co-blogger Dave Schuler as well as special guest Jim Henley from the excellent blog Unqualified Offerings. We’ll be discussing Senator Craig’s trials and […]

WSJ’s Christopher Cooper reports on what appears to be serious hypocrisy on John Edwards’ part: As a presidential candidate, Democrat John Edwards has regularly attacked subprime lenders, particularly those that have filed foreclosure suits against victims of Hurricane Katrina. But as an investor, Mr. Edwards has ties to lenders foreclosing on Katrina victims. The Wall […]

Political Wire passes on a CNN report that New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin (D) “is seriously considering a Louisiana gubernatorial bid” and has raised half a million dollars towards that end. Those of us still mystified that he was re-elected as mayor after the fiasco that was his handling of the Katrina aftermath can take […]

Famously incompetent Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco will not be seeking reelection after seeing poll numbers that would even make President Bush blanch: Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, politically battered by a shaky post-Hurricane Katrina performance, announced Tuesday that she would not seek election to a second term this fall. The Democratic governor’s announcement ends months […]

James Hamilton has an interesting post on industrial production. [T]he Federal Reserve Board’s index of industrial production fell one-half percent in January. That by itself is not that unusual. What makes it noteworthy is that this Fed index has been languishing for a while, and is now below its value of six months ago. That, […]

A group of Monroe, Louisiana business leaders auctioned off a dinner with Governor Kathleen Blanco. Bidding ended at one dollar. It’s a good thing they didn’t throw in New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, too–they’d have wound up owing money. If they really want to raise money, the should auction off dinner with Saints QB Drew […]

The General Accounting Office is reporting that the Federal Government was defrauded of well over $1 billion of money intended to assist the victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Fraud involving payments supposed to help victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita likely exceeds earlier estimates of $1 billion and only a tiny fraction of the […]

John Hawkins polled a large number of conservative bloggers on the 2006 election (I was asked but didn’t participate) and got some interesting results. 1) Do you think the GOP is going to retain control of the House? Yes (38) — 61.3% No (24) — 38.7% According to all the reputable polling I’ve seen over […]

A bizarre and sad epitaph to a Hurricane Katrina human interest story: A Hurricane Katrina victim who gained national notoriety by flashing her breasts for police cars in the wake of the devastating storm was apparently murdered and dismembered this month by her live-in boyfriend, who then cooked her body parts before committing suicide. Police […]

Stephen Green (contra Glenn Reynolds) pines for the good old days of the Cold War. The Cold War was the Great Civil War of Western Civilization — exactly like the Thirty Years War, only greater in scope. If the Russians had won, Western Civ would have gone on as before. Only, you know, a lot […]

Unlike most on the right side of the blogosphere, I took Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld to task for suggesting that those who disagreed with administration policies in the war against Islamist terrorists are akin to those who appeased Fascism in the 1930s. Last night, Keith Obermann got into the act, with a 6:41 monologue […]

Today’s NYT has a poignant story about comedian-magician-actor Harry Anderson’s decision to leave New Orleans. In the weeks after the storm, even before the power was back, Mr. Anderson opened his club for what he called French Quarter Town Hall meetings. The weekly gatherings, which at first offered little more than camaraderie by candlelight and […]

This article from the Cato Institute paints a very depressing image of President Bush’s bail out for New Orleans and the areas affected by hurricane Katrina. Calling President Bush, Franklin Delano Bush, based on this seems inaccurate in timing only given that President Bush has expanded spending at a rate that would have left Republicans […]

Pretending to be Using a victim of Hurricane Katrina to trick someone into selling you some land in Crawford, TX so that you can protest President Bush and the war in Iraq or tormenting children until they cry for your Bush-bashing art exhibit?

Dana Milbank has something of a blind item in his Washington Sketch column today in which he describes a meeting with a nameless Republican candidate “in one of the most competitive Senate races in the country” that is trying to distance himself from the Bush administration and his Republicans colleagues in Congress: On the Iraq […]

Islamist terrorists planned to bomb NYC’s Holland Tunnel, the NY Daily News reports. The FBI has uncovered what officials consider a serious plot by jihadists to bomb the Holland Tunnel in hopes of causing a torrent of water to deluge lower Manhattan, the Daily News has learned. The terrorists sought to drown the Financial District […]

This statue, outside a Memphis megachurch, is stirring up some controversy. On Independence Day, Lady Liberty was born again. As the congregation of the World Overcomers Outreach Ministries Church looked on and its pastor, Apostle Alton R. Williams, presided, a brown shroud much like a burqa was pulled away to reveal a giant statue of […]

Today’s New York Times fronts a story entitled “‘Breathtaking’ Waste and Fraud in Hurricane Aid.” Among the many superlatives associated with Hurricane Katrina can now be added this one: it produced one of the most extraordinary displays of scams, schemes and stupefying bureaucratic bungles in modern history, costing taxpayers up to $2 billion. A hotel […]

I mean, really, how else do you possibly explain this: Now that Dan Abrams has given up his MSNBC show to run the third-place cable news outlet, he might want to focus on the rising tensions between two of his prime-time personalities: Keith Olbermann and Rita Cosby. Olbermann, whose “Countdown With Keith Olbermann” airs weeknights […]

Parts of New Orleans are sinking an inch a year, according to new findings. Everyone has known New Orleans is a sinking city. Now new research suggests parts of the city are sinking even faster than many scientists imagined — more than an inch a year. That may explain some of the levee failures during […]

I’ll say. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert took to the podium, praised William Jefferson, and said a prayer attacking the FBI for violating the sanctity of the Congress, saying that the raid was not “God’s way” . . . Oh wait. That was a different scandal and a different Speaker. It was Tennessee Senate […]

Drudge is reporting (exclusive) that the Democratic National Committee worked “secretly” to defeat New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin, with the blessing of DNC chairman Howard “Yeaaaargh!” Dean; The DNC teams actively worked to defeat Nagin under the auspice of the committee’s voting rights program. The party’s field efforts also coincided with a national effort by […]

The New Orleans Saints have set a new franchise season ticket sales record–despite a population half what it was before Hurricane Katrina. This is especially heartening considering that a few months ago there was serious talk of the Saints not returning to town. ________ Related: NFL May Move Saints to Los Angeles Sources: Saints Unlikely […]

A new CNN poll shows that Americans think Bill Clinton was a better president than George W. Bush. In a new poll comparing President Bush’s job performance with that of his predecessor, a strong majority of respondents said President Clinton outperformed Bush on a host of issues. The poll of 1,021 adult Americans was conducted […]

Peter King has a scathing article in, of all places, Sports Illustrated about the conditions in the poorest area of New Orleans eight months after Hurricane Katrina. His is incensed: “What I saw was a national disgrace. An inexcusable, irresponsible, borderline criminal national disgrace. I am ashamed of this country for the inaction I saw […]

This is not your grandmother’s “Humane Society”. Those of us closely involved in dog sport have been long aware that the Humane Society of the United States is nothing more than an activist animal rights movement that has “appropriated” the identity of a long established and respected animal welfare organization. It is endlessly frustrating to […]

A Louisiana parish is interviewing Michael “Brownie” Brown for work as a consultant to help “get things moving again,” USA Today reports. The leaders of a Louisiana parish devastated by Hurricane Katrina may bring in hired help from an unlikely source — heavily criticized former FEMA director Michael Brown. Brown, who resigned two weeks after […]

President Bush is down to 36 percent approval in the latest AP poll, his lowest yet in that survey. Further, “Bush’s job approval among Republicans plummeted from 82 percent in February to 74 percent” and only 43 percent approve of his handling of foreign policy and terrorism–his strongest issue. AP political writer Ron Fournier points […]

Nicole Gaouette reports that President Bush was warned that the New Orleans levees would break. The day they broke. Sort of. Newly released video footage taken just hours before Hurricane Katrina battered the Gulf Coast shows that federal officials delivered stark warnings to President Bush and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that the storm could […]

AP and MSN have launched a news video repository, which will offer 40 clips a day free. The Associated Press and Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday launched a new service which allows the news cooperative’s member Web sites to offer free video news clips and share in advertising revenue generated from the service. The AP Online […]

From the Smoking Gun comes this story about how FEMA distributed ATM cards were “abused”. Here is a list of items that were bought, .45 calibre pistol–$1,300 Gentlemen’s club–$1,200 Diamond engagement ring–$1,100 Gambling–$1,000 Bail Bond–$1,000 Traffic tickets–$700 Tatoo–$450 Massage Parlor–$400 Alcoholic beverages–$200 Condoms–$150 Now I know that most people are going to be upset or […]