Just announced via breaking news on CNN. Mayor Ray Nagin just held a press conference and said that “the city is OUT of money.” The plan, of course, had been to bring people back to the city and employ them…. why isn’t that working? A commentator said that there are garbage piles 15 feet high that only private contractors are picking up.
From the A.P. at Yahoo:
NEW ORLEANS – Mayor Ray Nagin said Tuesday the city is laying off as many as 3,000 employees – or about half the city’s workforce – because of the damage done to New Orleans’ finances by Hurricane Katrina. Nagin announced with “great sadness” that he had been unable to find the money to keep the workers on the payroll. He said only non-essential workers would be laid off and that no firefighters or police would be among those let go.
And — probably related to the political impact of hurricane Katrina — the Dept. of Commerce “has issued a blanket media policy to employees of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), requiring that all requests for contact from national media be first approved by the Dept.,” according to Raw Story.
Does this mean that we would have not received the National Weather Service’s urgent warning on Sunday before Katrina hit? Because the courageous weather analyst who wrote it would have been forced to go through the Dept. of Commerce? Do they answer their phones on Sundays? What are their criteria? Would they have made him edit the dire warning he issued, which turned out to be prescient?
Adding Insult to Injury NOLA Times-Picyaune article 2 Oct/BT Open Thread 10.3.05.
Homeless, broke and now jobless, and Davis-Bacon has been suspended. Same old shit, different day.
Peace
The tragedy of Mayor Nagan is that since he is a dem and has been highly critical of the admin, he will wait till the cows come home before he sees dime one of aid! And I am sure that it is being said behind the closed doors in the wh– “let the …… swing.Not a dime! Not one G-d dime!”
And the real tragedy is that we wont see a single dem rep stand up and start screaming. Out of state workers brought in at whatever wage Da bosses decide to pay! Contracts signed for portable school rooms at 88 thousand per, Alaska based and never has bought /costed/delivered a single school room in the past! Roof tarps with a life span of 3 months contracted to another Out of state Co while locale builders were methodically omitted from the bidding!
Yet-When a crone like meir in nominated, the leader of the dems in the senate stands up and Ok the women even before any public investigation is begun into her lack of credentials!
More? I don’t think so. billjpa@aol.com
And the real tragedy is that we wont see a single dem rep stand up and start screaming. Out of state workers brought in at whatever wage Da bosses decide to pay
We should stand up and start screaming. I’m serious. We should go to the Capitol with video cameras (like Michael Moore) and ask senators and congresspeople to speak on the record about this situation.
OOOOPs- Sorry but I did leave out one last item. It is a question : What does anyone think the NOLA city worker is thinking when he or she sees an out of state worker doing a AND GETTING PAID FOR THAT WORK while the local NOLA employee has just gotten laid off?
It could get real messy down there, REAL MESSY!
billjpa@aol.com
Nagin just wants to keep his job. He could get a better job by raising hell. By standing up. By protesting the take over of the city by the military and private contractors, turning this into another Baghdad where “progress is being made”.
This is a another slap in the face of real American people. The government is going to let faith based church companies …that’s what they are…well Jesus Christ can kiss my ass, I am so sick of hearing about this phony legend who came to Earth 2000 years ago from outer space to save mankind and all he could come up with was to cure a couple of blind people raise a dead man from the dead and ressurect his own ass for 3 measly days. It’s time to open an investigation as to who he really was. Probably a real rotten, othordox mean son of a bitch who said it’s my way or the highway and he got his ass nailed to a cross for nothing. And when I say son of a bitch I mean that is what in all likely hood he was. Oh boy I better stop.!
People need to read up on the other side of this criminal enterprise called Christianity. It’s been a money maker from the beggining. That’s all I think Paul and James and John ever talked about.
Why should it have been any different then?
Born again Bush doesn’t give a damn about these people. They have Mexican workers coming in to do construction.
Nobody cares about these people except other “ordinary”
people who generally don’t have the power to do anythiing massive.
Pisses me off.