Free Republic

NEW ORLEANS, July 25, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A New Orleans grand jury decided Tuesday not to indict Dr. Anna Pou, a doctor who was accused of murdering four patients during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Pou had been charged by Louisiana's attorney general on 10 counts, including second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit second-degree murder. Earlier this year two nurses who had admitted to administering lethal doses of medication to patients at the same medical center were offered immunity in return for their testimony before the grand jury. Pou and the others have consistently claimed that while they did administer...

BILOXI, Miss. — This seaside gambling resort along a stretch of the Gulf Coast, sometimes called the “redneck Riviera,” has 40 percent fewer hotel rooms and only two-thirds as many slot machines as it did before Hurricane Katrina. A major bridge that connects the casinos in this popular tourist destination to Alabama, the Florida Panhandle and other points east remains closed, and Mayor A. J. Holloway estimates that as many as 15 percent of the city’s pre-Katrina residents still have not returned. Yet business in the gambling halls of Biloxi has reached all-time highs in recent months, so much so...

It's been two years since Hurricane Katrina and Rita ripped through the belly of the South, and survivors, along with various scholars and activists, are seeking to hold the US government responsible in a tribunal court hearing scheduled for this August. On Tuesday (July 17), New York City Councilman Charles Barron and former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney met at Manhattan's Center for Constitutional Rights for a press conference to discuss the upcoming trial. The tribunal will target President Bush, the US government, State of Louisiana, State of Mississippi, and various other agencies who were involved in the Katrina and Rita...

It is just after Christmas in 2003 and John Edwards is running hard for president of the United States. He is in Iowa, with the caucuses about three weeks away. Pundits, guided by a massive disinformation campaign, have decided that Howard Dean is going to win Iowa. Edwards remains undiscouraged. A highly effective stump speaker, Edwards always gets a laugh by saying, "Objects in the mirror may be closer than they appear." Edwards is a product of the American middle class. His father worked in a textile mill, and his mother ran an antique refinishing business and then became a...

NEW ORLEANS, June 21, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Nurses Cheri Landry and Lori Budo, who have admitted to administering lethal doses of medication to patients during the hurricane Katrina disaster, are being offered immunity from prosecution by the Louisiana Attorney General. CNN reports that in two weeks the two will testify before a Grand Jury that four patients died after being administered what Louisiana's Attorney General, Charles Foti Jr., called a "lethal cocktail" of drugs.In the immediate aftermath of the hurricane that devastated New Orleans in late August 2005, rumours began to fly around the internet world that patients were...

Stand atop any levee in the New Orleans area, and one question will offer itself, unbidden, to the mind: Is this pile of dirt tall enough to stand up to the next storm? The answer is complex, and a wary city has been waiting to hear it. After the New Orleans hurricane protection system failed under the onslaught of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the Army Corps of Engineers rethought the way it assesses hurricane risk. It devised new, flexible computer models and ran countless simulations on Defense Department supercomputers to help it understand what kind of storms the region can...

Houston-based KBR, formerly the engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton Co., has a contingency contract in place with the Department of Homeland Security to construct detention facilities in the event of a national emergency. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, spokeswoman Jamie Zuieback confirmed yesterday in a telephone interview that the KBR contract for $385 million was awarded initially in January 2006 for a one-year base period with four one-year options. It has been extended into 2007. KBR held a previous emergency detention contract with ICE from 2000 to 2005. Zuieback told this writer the primary intent of the KBR...

I've been hearing rumors for a couple of weeks now that New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin is considering running for Governor. I finally found a news outlet that confirms this rumor, thanks to freelance journalist Jason Berry, who appeared on Informed Sources last night to predict that Nagin will run for Governor. Hat tip to Library Chronicles. As an aside, is this Jason Berry the author of Amazing Grace, an account of Charles Evers' run for Governor in Mississippi back in 1972? But back to the issue at hand - Ray Nagin running for Governor of Louisiana. This makes...

Hillary Rodham Clinton says "If talk, bureaucracy and promises were enough" New Orleans would have been rebuilt three times over by now. The Democratic presidential candidate spoke to graduates at Dillard University in New Orleans today. She says rebuilding New Orleans is an "American obligation." One she says the Bush administration has failed to meet. The historically black college was heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Clinton says she has a plan that would speed the pace of recovery and assess progress in shoring up levees. Nearly two years after the hurricane, about 40% of the city's population remains displaced.

The Left is in a tizzy over the use of private security companies in New Orleans following the destruction of Hurrican Katrina. And it has less to do with the fact they have been used on US soil than the fact that they exist at all. I have absolutely no problems using such companies overseas (I wish we could just hand over the entire country of Iraq to such a company), but as a free ‘non-serf’ citizen I am always on guard against strong arm tactics by government on any level that may endanger the rights of the citizenry. But...

NASA announced plans on Monday to build a new engine test stand at Stennis Space Center in Hancock County. The announcement represents an estimated $175 million investment in Stennis and serves to support the Constellation Project. That's NASA's plan to return the United States to the Moon and eventually to Mars. The new stand at Stennis will test NASA's J-2X engines, which will be used in the second stage of the Ares I launch vehicle. NASA officials say the new 300-foot-tall open-frame design will allow engineers to simulate conditions at different altitudes. The new stand will be completed in time...

Some California high school students are discovering they don't have to travel to foreign lands to make a positive difference in the lives of others. The juniors and seniors from The King's Academy in Sunnyville, California are used to the hard work that goes along with building and repairing houses, but they're used to doing it in Mexico. High school junior Spencer Nolet said, "When you go down there and you see what these people are living in, tarps and cardboard walls, it's pretty amazing." This is Community Service Week at The King's Academy. While some students still went south...

New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin believes that that the slow recovery and rebuilding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina is part of a plan to disperse black voters geographically to make it more difficult for blacks to be elected to political office."Ladies and gentlemen, what happened in New Orleans could happen anywhere. They are studying this model of natural disasters, dispersing the community and changing the electoral process in that community," Nagin said in a speech to the National Newspaper Publishers Association, a trade group for newspapers serving the black community.The Washington Post reports that Nagin, who won reelection...

Washington Post reporter Lyndsey Layton reported Thursday that House Republicans will move for an unusual vote protesting the new committee assignment of Democratic Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana, the congressman still under investigation for the $90,000 in bribe money found in his home freezer. After removing Jefferson from the powerful Ways and Means Committee last year as the Democrats ran against a "culture of corruption," Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi now wants to place him on the Homeland Security Committee. Layton's story highlights Jefferson's role as a "vocal critic of FEMA's performance" in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans...

Five days ago, Diane Sawyer promised viewers they could wake up to ABC’s morning program to find her and her colleagues “taking your case” to insurance companies “and getting answers” about unresolved Hurricane Katrina claims. Yet on the February 20 show, when the answers weren’t to her liking, Sawyer’s colleague Robin Roberts presented a Democratic congressman attacking the industry as a champion of homeowners, and only mentioned her own compromising emotional connection to the story at the end of her report. “And full disclosure here, to be fair, you are understanding [sic] that my family was very much affected by...

Former Senator and 2008 presidential candidate John Edwards first came to national prominence when his 2004 presidential campaign focused on the “two Americas” theme of fighting poverty. Edwards’ second presidential campaign again makes poverty a central focus, and he announced the campaign in December in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward (video below). I am very glad that Edwards is out there highlighting the neglect of the Gulf Coast when the mainstream media ignores it, but a deeper analysis shows that sadly, Edwards is no Gulf Coast champion and neglects the issue almost as much as the media. As of...

My son had been on me for a while to watch this video... I love U2, and loved the song when I first heard it, but I'm not really appreciative of Green Day's message and politics (obviously), so I avoided it for a while. That said, I was pretty blown away by this video, and can't believe Green Day had anything to do with it, unless I'm just retarded and missing something? Watch it here.

Some days nothing goes right. John Edwards had one of those days the last week of 2006 when he announced his candidacy for president -- and hardly anyone noticed. On the other hand, who didn't already know? Edwards -- who, if I'm not mistaken, is the son of a millworker -- hasn't stopped running for president since he started four years ago. He paused briefly to run for vice president in 2004, when John Kerry dragged him off the dance floor and made him his main squeeze. But no sooner did they lose than Edwards began running again. Like Forrest...

The following is the latest information on casinos reopening on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Open Beau Rivage Resort & Casino opened Aug. 29, 2006, the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. The resort also plans to open a new golf course in autumn 2006. Beau Rivage has new restaurants, a redesigned and more luxurious casino, and the stores along the promenade will look more like a street with each having their own look inside and out. In addition, all of the guest rooms have been redesigned and have a new look. NEW - Silver Slipper, the Coast's newest casino opened November...

Yes, the rumor’s true. Greg Palast is facing a criminal complaint from the Department of Homeland Security stemming from his filming the Hurricane Katrina investigation for Link TV and Democracy Now. The film’s producer, Matt Pascarella, is also facing the legal wrath of Big Brother. It appears the complaint is about filming a sensitive national security site owned by Exxon petroleum. It seems that photographing major Bush donors is now a federal offense. Reached at an undisclosed location, Palast says, “Let’s not get over-excited. They haven’t measured us for our orange suits yet.” During questioning by Homeland Security, Palast asked,...