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As he returns to New Orleans today after a six-day junket in Cuba, Mayor Ray Nagin almost certainly will face questions about the latest addition to his collection of controversial comments. Nagin told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he thinks Cuba's repressive regime does "a much better job" than U.S. officials of identifying citizen needs and deploying resources in the face of hurricanes, which routinely batter the Caribbean nation. Though Hurricanes Gustav, Ike and Paloma all struck the island last year, only seven Cubans were killed, in part because authorities use soldiers to close highways and enforce evacuations. Harking...

Aiming to maximize federal grant money and offer proof of his city's recovery, Mayor Ray Nagin is urging Hurricane Katrina victims still living elsewhere -- and longing to return -- to record New Orleans as their home when the U.S. Census Bureau conducts its decennial head count next spring. Problem is, that strategy doesn't mesh with census rules, federal officials say. In an e-mail response to questions about the much-anticipated count, Nagin spokesman James Ross said this week: "An area of major concern relates to New Orleanians working to return here. Many are repairing their homes, and others are trying...

NEW ORLEANS -- Mayor Ray Nagin described his experience being quarantined in China amid fears of swine flu exposure as "very surreal" in an interview with WDSU on Wednesday night.

NEW ORLEANS -- New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin, who traveled on Friday to Shanghai, China, on an economic development trip, was informed early Sunday that a passenger on the airplane in which he was traveling was confirmed to have signs and symptoms of an influenza-like illness, suspected to be of the H1N1 -- or swine flu -- subtype. As a precaution, Nagin, his wife and one member of the mayor's executive protection unit have been placed in a designated quarantine location in Shanghai. The mayor's agenda is on indefinite hold, though he and the others are symptom-free. "Right now,...

New Orleans, LA (AHN) - Reports are stemming from local New Orleans media that Mayor C. Ray Nagin is being quarantined in Shanghai after possibly being exposed to the H1N1 virus on his business trip in China. Nagin administration spokeswoman Ceeon D. Quiett said Nagin is being treated with the "utmost courtesy by Chinese officials." According to the Mayor's website, the purpose of the trip was to "meet with four prospects interested in the possibility of locating their businesses in New Orleans."The website also notes that Nagin is expected to travel to Sydney, Australia, "where he will be the keynote...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and his wife have been placed in quarantine after a passenger on their flight to China exhibited flu-like symptoms. Nagin's press office said a passenger had "signs and symptoms of an influence-like illness suspected to be of the H1N1 subtype." This comes amid continued global concerns about swine flu. The office said Sunday the couple and a security guard were placed under quarantine in Shanghai as a precaution and were exhibiting no symptoms.

Okay, boys and girls, it's time to play on America's favorite political game show.....NAME THAT PARTY!!! Today's show features a highly unpopular mayor of New Orleans written up in the New York Times. The first person who thinks he knows the political party affiliation of the mayor, please hit the buzzer. The hidden clues might be hard to find in this article but they could lead the more carefully discerning among you to the correct answer: NEW ORLEANS — As Mayor C. Ray Nagin approaches his final year in office, he faces scandal, an acrimonious stalemate with the City Council...

As Mayor C. Ray Nagin approaches his final year in office, he faces scandal, an acrimonious stalemate with the City Council and the worst popularity ratings ever recorded for a mayor here. Term limits will keep him from running again, so Mr. Nagin’s eight tumultuous years of leading what he called a “chocolate city” will come to an end next May. He has not been popular among middle-class white voters since the chaotic days after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, but now, with the city still in a halting recovery more than three and a half years later, residents citywide seem...

President Obama’s honeymoon is beginning to fade. Members of Congress and old political hands say he needs to show substantial progress reviving the economy soon. Some Democrats have started to worry that voters don’t and won’t understand the link between economic revival and Obama’s huge agenda, which includes saving the banking industry, ending home foreclosures, reforming healthcare and developing a national energy policy, among much else. While lawmakers debate controversial proposals contained in the new president’s debut budget — cutting farm subsidies, raising taxes on charitable contributions, etc. — there is a growing sense that time is running out faster...

NEW ORLEANS — Two members of President Barack Obama's cabinet said Thursday they are disturbed by the extent of damage that remains 3 1/2 years after Hurricane Katrina and pledged to speed the pace of rebuilding across the Gulf Coast. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan announced creation of new federal-state review teams to resolve funding disputes and a five-year, $50 million housing program. "What we have seen today makes us disturbed, angry even, to see some of the families living the way that they have," Donovan said from a 9th Ward housing...

CNN Immedately Pulls Plug On Only Dissenting Stimulus Voice At Mayor's Conference Republican Mayor of Charlotte (no name posted), "in my fourteenth year", gets cut off! http://townhall.com/blog

As we thankfully near the end of the Nagin administration, everything seems to be falling apart at City Hall. Therefore, it is interesting that there are sources reporting this morning that Ray Nagin is being considered for the position of Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the new Obama administration. According to one leading Democrat, Nagin is on the short list for the job because of “his experience leading New Orleans during the post-Katrina period.” While there has been significant rebuilding in New Orleans including a major revitalization of the public housing developments in the past three year, there...

A New Orleans federal judge has sentenced a Slidell man in connection with a case where the man illegally wore a Navy uniform, complete with medals, at a wedding, according to U. S. Attorney Jim Letten. Letten reports that 42-year-old Andy Jerome Ticker was sentenced by Judge Jay Zainey to 12 months of home confinement, two years of supervised release, and a $500 fine. Ticker was charged with illegally wearing military decorations and medals. Letten says that, according to court documents, Ticker attended a wedding in Slidell back in April wearing a Navy Captain dress white uniform, complete with the...

Excerpt - Even as residents who fled the city ahead of Hurricane Gustav continued to return, Mayor Ray Nagin said Saturday that it appeared the city would need to start worrying about Hurricane Ike. Hurricane Ike grew to Category 4 strength Saturday and could head into the Gulf of Mexico by early next week, putting residents along the Gulf Coast on alert less than a week after Gustav made landfall in south Louisiana. Nagin told reporters he's worried about fast-moving Ike and about the wherewithal of residents who one week ago began leaving ahead of Gustav. Reactions of residents who've...

Katrina was the biggest natural disaster that ever hit the United States. Noone anticipated or was prepared for such damage. Besides being a smaller hurricane that did not hit New Orleans directly, Gustav was managed by a competent Republican governor who heeded the warnings and took appropriate measures to protect the city and its people. Those whose vision are not clouded by the need to "get" President Bush will remember that the incompetent mayor of the city, Ray Nagin, ignored the warnings of the Bush Administration to evacuate the city. Who can forget the pictures of the hundreds of empty...

In a scene reminiscent of a satirical Carnival parade, about 75 protesters chanted and waved handmade signs outside a posh Canal Street hotel Friday evening while inside a gilded ballroom two stories above them Mayor Ray Nagin accepted the inaugural Award of Distinction for Recovery, Courage and Leadership from an honorary committee packed with his political allies. MICHAEL DEMOCKER / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE Protestors gather outside the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in New Orleans Friday August 22, 2008 to protest Mayor Ray Nagin getting an award. Marching in a circle so they wouldn't halt foot traffic, protesters wearing T-shirts, shorts and paper hats...

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin refutes the findings of the latest UNO Quality of Life Study that show his approval rating has declined from 40 percent to 31 percent. "I think UNO needs a little more money in its budget. The sample size was pretty small, as well as, the margin of error was at 10 percent in Orleans Parish, which is unusual for somebody trying to assess the approval rating of a political leader. Nobody does that," said Nagin in an exclusive interview with Rush Radio 99.5 WRNO. According to the UNO poll, 49 percent of black respondents approve...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Since Hurricane Katrina flooded his home 30 months ago, Donald Collins says, he has fled to an evacuation center, huddled in an abandoned house and lived in a tent outside City Hall. Eventually the former sanitation worker migrated to a downtown underpass where crack sales and clothing donations seem equally common. Mayor Ray Nagin has another stop in mind for Collins and about 200 other people who have been squatting there for months: a military- style barrack that critics say is short on long-term solutions to a homeless epidemic. "I'm not going," Collins, 52, said as...

Did Mayor Take Aim At Chief? POSTED: 10:28 am CST February 14, 2008 UPDATED: 1:53 pm CST February 14, 2008 NEW ORLEANS -- A firestorm of controversy ensued after Mayor Ray Nagin, sporting a broad smile, seemed to aim an assault rifle at Police Superintendent Warren Riley in a Times-Picayune newspaper photo. Watch The Story | Poll: Did He Do It On Purpose? The photograph has pervaded talk radio and cyberspace, creating blog chatter and a forum for public opinion. Many pundits, bloggers and forum-posters took aim at the mayor. The shot was taken at a public unveiling of new...

NEW ORLEANS — The National Rifle Association has hired private investigators to find hundreds of people whose firearms were seized by city police in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, according to court papers filed this week. The NRA is trying to locate gun owners for a federal lawsuit that the lobbying group filed against Mayor Ray Nagin and Police Superintendent Warren Riley over the city's seizure of firearms after the Aug. 29, 2005, hurricane. In the lawsuit, the NRA and the Second Amendment Foundation claim the city violated gun owners' constitutional right to bear arms and left them "at the...

New Orleans is narrowly retaining a black majority after Hurricane Katrina, according to a study released Wednesday by The Brookings Institution. ADVERTISEMENT The study determined that while blacks left the city at a much faster rate than whites, New Orleans was still 58 percent black during 2006. Before Katrina, which hit Aug. 29, 2005, the city was 67 percent black, according to the U.S. census. "It's certainly still a predominantly African-American city," said William Frey, a demographer and senior fellow at Washington, D.C.-based Brookings. "Speculation that there was not going to be a black majority in the city is not...

I guess I’m really a hard-hearted person, but as a survivor of Florida’s Hurricane Charley, which tore my roof off and forced me to spend many days of back-breaking labor and many months of distress, I have no sympathy for the slobs and vultures in New Orleans who want everyone else but them to handle their problems. I agree with the sentiments expressed in the following articles, and I’ll go on to point out that the incident that sealed my disgust with these whiners was when they re-elected Mayor Ray Nagin, possibly the most incompetent politician in the U.S.A. Who...

Mayor Ray Nagin said he worries that slayings in the city make it seem dangerous, but news of such crimes "keeps the New Orleans brand out there." In a city where the tourism industry is the lifeblood of a fragile economy, the wave of violence threatens to derail efforts to bring visitors -- and former residents -- back. Yet Nagin, at a bricklaying ceremony Thursday, told reporters it's a "two-edged sword." "It's not good for us, but it also keeps the New Orleans brand out there, and it keeps people thinking about our needs and what we need to bring...

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin recently say he intends to run for governor but not to announce until just before he qualifies in September. He has told sources that, given the choices, he is only candidate who can attract enough African-Americans to the polls to force Congressman Bobby Jindal into a runoff. Republicans agree, but they see Nagin's candidacy as insurance of GOP victory in a runoff if there is one.

To discuss succeeding Bill Jefferson, observer believes: Friday, July 20, 2007 Political strategist and demographer Elliott Stonecipher tells 99.5FM Ray Nagin's real goal is replacing Bill Jefferson in Congress. "I think the fact that Nagin is spending so much time with his good friend Howard Dean ought to tell us that he's about to become a democrat party operative all over again, and that tells me it's about Congress," Stonecipher says. In an interview with 99.5FM, Stonecipher said that "the Democrat National Committee wants to use him (Nagin) in leveraging Bill Jefferson out of that seat." "They're not going to...

Mayor Nagin's progressive policies resolved to erase the image of New Orleans as place where graft is part of the old world charm. He launched several high profile investigations that resulted in a paradigm shift that unleashed unprecedented economic development in his first term. Mayor Nagin built his administration using progressive, business oriented individuals who are making a difference for New Orleans. They immediately eliminated back to back budget deficits, launched a new city web site that currently ranks as the nations best, streamlined bureaucratic processes, making City government a viable and accessible force in local life. With economic development...

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...

District Court Judge to City Attorney: Conduct "wholly unprofessional" : Fairfax, VA-The National Rifle Association (NRA) and law abiding gun owners have won yet another victory On February 13, 2007, against New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and former police chief Warren Riley. Judge Carl J. Barbier, presiding over the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, granted NRA's motion for contempt against New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Warren Riley for "failure to provide initial disclosures and to compel answers to discovery" during NRA's injunction against the City for their illegal gun confiscation of law abiding citizens following...

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) -- Mayor Ray Nagin told a Senate committee Monday he doesn't see the will to fix his hurricane-battered city when compared with the billions spent on the war in Iraq. "I think it's more class than anything, but there's racial issues associated with it also," Nagin said. Nagin also asked for Congress to change the laws and regulations to speed up the flow of federal aid. "From my perspective, not having the resources at the local level is the absolute killer of this recovery," Nagin told the Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which is...

Yesterday, it was announced that a grand total of 26 people have received their cash settlements from the Louisiana Recovery Authority. This is out of a total of 123,000 potential applicants. LRA leaders are touting the numbers as progress, which sure sounds like spin to me. In the meantime, thousands of poor victims make difficult decisions every day whether to stay in the state or leave. Unfortunately, due to the slow pace of the Road Home plan, thousands have opted to leave. Along with concerns about levees, political corruption, poor schools, the slow pace of relief by the LRA is...

Bit h/t to the Commenters at Just One Minute. We bloggers owe our best work to their diligence and tenacity. The following is a complilation of some what they found so far, of what just may be the key to getting to the bottom of a Democratic conspiracy in the Foley Setup. As I previously posted here, there apparently was a promise of a book deal to pages by a Robin Kasaros. Googling her name brought about useful information such as she hosted “House Parties” back in 2005. No, not where you sell Tupperware, but the kind that like to...

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, who rarely misses an opportunity to tout his efforts to rid City Hall of corruption, said Thursday that he will enthusiastically urge voters to re-elect U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, the target of a sprawling federal bribery probe that has cost the veteran congressman his seat on an influential House committee. When he was locked in a tough re-election campaign last spring, Nagin said, Jefferson was one of the few local elected officials to stand by him. As an embattled Jefferson prepares to face a dozen challengers in a Nov. 7 bid for a ninth term...

September 5, 2006 at 6:31 am New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, the man who apologized for his “chocolate city” comments and who exhibited a complete failure of leadership and competence during Hurricane Katrina, has now had to apologize for remarks made in reference to Ground Zero in New York. As we near the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Nagin, in his vast judgment, criticized New York for not yet fixing the “hole in the ground” — his reference to the site at which the World Trade Center once stood. As reported in the Washington Times,...

The left and its media and Hollywood accomplices are using this Katrina anniversary once again to smear President Bush. The lies told by the Associated Press about the levees have been well documented (See “Oops, Bush Didn’t Lie, Sorry About That” on my website, in March, 2006), and as ‘Popular Mechanics’ pointed out, “In fact, the response to Hurricane Katrina was by far the largest--and fastest-rescue effort in U.S. history, with nearly 100,000 emergency personnel arriving on the scene within three days of the storm's landfall.

August 26, 2006 -- Ray Nagin, in his own way almost as much a disaster for New Orleans as was Hurricane Katrina, deigns to crack wise about New York City - about Ground Zero, actually. Who can forget Mayor Nagin - the fellow who dissolved into hysterical sobs, on national TV no less, at the height of the Katrina crisis a year ago. Remember the utterly false claims about how evacuation centers were being overrun by gangs of heavily armed rapists and murderers?

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, speaking to reporters in New Orleans on Friday, acknowledged that some people might consider his comments about the recovery of New York's World Trade Center area to be insensitive. But he said it was the only comparison he could make to the devastation that was seen in New Orleans and the progress that's been made since. Nagin said some people may take issue with words he uses, but said he doesn't know of cases in which the overall context of his comments have been disputed.

Since Hurricane Katrina hit, New Orleans and its leaders have been in the national spotlight. But, a new toy pokes fun at Mayor Ray Nagin and his response during the Katrina crisis. News Channel 5's Larry Collins finds out if people think it's too soon to joke or if laughter really is the best medicine. video

WNBC.com reports: NEW YORK -- New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, confronted with accusations he's taking too long to rebuild his city after Hurricane Katrina, takes a swipe at New York's redevelopment of the World Trade Center site on a television news show. Nagin, weaving through the wreckage in the devastated Ninth Ward neighborhood, claimed much of the debris was removed from public property, but when a "60 Minutes" correspondent pointed out flood-damaged cars on the streets, Nagin shot back, "You guys in New York can't get a hole in the ground fixed, and it's five years later. So let's be...

(AP) INDIANAPOLIS -- The mayor of New Orleans blames racism and government bureaucracy for hampering the city's ability to both weather Hurricane Katrina and recover from it. Ray Nagin is convinced things would've been different had the storm hit Orange County, California, or Miami Beach. And he's telling the National Association of Black Journalists that the storm exposed what he calls "the soft underbelly of America as it relates to dealing with race and class." In his speech, Nagin also suggested that state and federal officials would prefer New Orleans remain a smaller city. It now has just over half...

FBI starts probe of donated autos : When carmaker DaimlerChrysler AG donated 40 trucks and sport utility vehicles to Katrina-crushed governments in southeastern Louisiana last September, company officials never imagined some of them would wind up in the hands of private nonprofits. In fact, the company said Thursday that it made clear to the cities and parishes that received the gifts -- collectively valued at more than $1 million -- that they were for the exclusive use of public agencies or government units, such as police and fire departments. Dave Elshoff, a DaimlerChrysler spokesman, said those instructions were delivered, both...

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Amsterdam will get a theme park dedicated to chocolate and inspired by Roald Dahl's children's book "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," city officials and entrepreneurs said Thursday. Just like Dahl's fictional "Chocolate Factory" owned by Willy Wonka, the main part of the "sweets park" will be located underground, in a disused railway tunnel which was handed over by the city of Amsterdam in a ceremony Thursday. The attraction, which is expected to open to the public in two to three years, will feature a glass elevator and a chocolate fountain, similar to the book. It will also...

The mayors of both New Orleans and Baton Rouge take serious issue with a U.S. census report issued Tuesday night estimating how many people have moved out of, or around, Louisiana since Hurricane Katrina. As WAFB's Jim Shannon reports, neither mayor believes the information is accurate. If you buy what's on the census data reports, the cities of New Orleans and Baton Rouge could be in for the short end of the stick when it comes to federal dollars. "My reaction is virtually one of shock," said Baton Rouge Mayor Kip Holden. "I mean anybody that says that roughly we've...

NEW ORLEANS – Mayor Ray Nagin took the oath of office Thursday for a second term leading this storm-hobbled city, promising a better future during a ceremony held at the site of some of the worst misery caused by Hurricane Katrina. Nagin, who defeated Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu on May 20, was sworn in at the convention center, a giant riverside complex where thousands of hungry, scared evacuees waited days for rescue last summer as muddy water submerged most of the city. “Today is a new beginning for New Orleans, another beginning for New Orleans. I stand before you tried,...

I’ll be brief this time about Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans. Due to stupidity and incompetence, he did not carry out the evacuation plan for his city. As a result, more than a thousand of his constituents died, and tens of thousands suffered personal disaster, and had to be rescued by the Coast Guard and the National Guard. There was an established evacuation plan for Southern Louisiana, dated 1 January, 2004. Local and national media were incompetent in not reporting this plan and its details. The salient point was that the mandatory evacuation had to be called early, to...

NEW ORLEANS -- Mayor C. Ray Nagin says a victory in tomorrow's election will send a message on race that "will echo throughout America." "This election will say in spite of American prejudice, I was able to attract votes from all races and classes and move forward with the process of healing," said Mr. Nagin, who has hinted that whites locally and nationally are working to unseat him from the post, which blacks have held for nearly 30 years. Mr. Nagin questions the source of "$6 million" that opponent Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu has raised, hinting at an effort to...

NEW ORLEANS -- Mayor Ray Nagin unveiled a new evacuation strategy for New Orleans on Tuesday that relies more on buses and trains and eliminates the Superdome and Convention Center as shelters. "There will be no shelter of last resort in the event of a major hurricane coming our way," Nagin declared. The mayor, facing a runoff election May 20, has been widely criticized for failing to get the city's most vulnerable residents out of town as Hurricane Katrina approached. The Superdome and Morial Convention Center became a scene of misery for days after the Aug. 29 hurricane as thousands...

My father and I recently discussed a book about the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake he had read. He related to me the amazing stories of how quickly the recovery began. Indeed, there were many Herculean feats amid the destruction: The first electric street cars were running within weeks of the quake. The Postal Service had mail deliveries going within days. Relief supplies flooded in from around the state and country. Congress immediately appropriated millions of dollars for the recovery effort. Perhaps most amazing, only nine years after the quake the city played host to the 1915 World’s Fair. Astonishing as...

NEW ORLEANS - At first glance, the mayoral debate seemed like any other -- a forum in which the challengers focused most of their attacks on the incumbent, who spent much of his allotted time defending his record and trying to turn the problems that have plagued his administration into a positive in the name of experience. But Monday night's New Orleans mayoral debate also reflected the unprecedented circumstances of this election, first and foremost by being broadcast on national television, on MSNBC. Viewers outside New Orleans may not have recognized any of the seven candidates who took part except...

New Orleans has long been pivotal in the struggle for black voting rights. During the Civil War, free blacks there demanded suffrage; their efforts resulted in Lincoln's first public call for voting rights for some blacks in the final speech of his life. Once these rights were won, New Orleans blacks took an active part in politics, leading to the establishment of the South's only integrated public school system. But rights once gained aren't necessarily secure; after Reconstruction, blacks in New Orleans lost the right to vote. As Thomas Wentworth Higginson wrote at the time of the Civil War, "revolutions...

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is reaching out to his city's residents still living in Houston with a large billboard on the southeast side at the Gulf Freeway and Wayside. It reads "Re-elect our Mayor Ray Nagin and let's keep New Orleans moving forward." Members of the ACORN Katrina Survivors Association have arranged for buses to take people back to the city to vote. Early voting begins Monday.