Everything you need to know about McCain

Ahhhhhh...who would have thought that the senior senator from the great state of Arizona would be sitting in the cat bird seat on Feb. 1, 2008 as we approach Super Tuesday?

Certainly not your humble narrator.

I thought McCain shot himself in the foot 2 years ago when he sponsored immigration reform, which amounted to Amnesty for illegals.

McCain is not a conservative. He's not even a mainstream Republican. Like all the current candidates, they have to "present themselves" (ie. Lie to you.) as a right of center politician. They do that because they know that if they didn't, they'd never get elected. That is why it is of supreme importance and incumbent upon you, dear Reader/Voter, to review the records of each one of them before casting your vote.

Beyond his liberal voting tendencies, his personality is grating. He's hot-headed, stubborn and has a coarse mouth when upset. If you saw the debate last night, McCain was getting all worked up about Romney running ads which criticize McCain for some of his political stands. Gee, last time I checked, that's what an election is all about.

McCain even entertained the idea of leaving the GOP in 2001 and, his office approached John Kerry to see if he'd agree to run as VP with McCain! So now there is a chance that Kerry may be offered the VP spot if McCain garners the nomination.

The conservative base is livid that this poseur even has a chance to be the presidential nominee. Ann Coulter announced that she would vote for Hillary over McCain because 'Hillary is more conservative than McCain.'

God, I know just how Coulter feels!

Here's a snippet from the always-brilliant Mark Levin:

In sum, John McCain has been weak on homeland security, joining with numerous liberal Democrats to argue for closing Guantanamo Bay, applying the Geneva Conventions to unlawful enemy combatants, extending certain constitutional rights to detainees, limiting tried and true interrogation techniques, and conferring amnesty on illegal aliens (which would include OTMs; that fact that Bush supported the same thing is no defense). He aggressively opposed the Bush tax cuts, even after they were scaled back. He is behind the McCain-Lieberman Stewardship Act, which is a Kyoto-like manifesto. His role in McCain-Feingold goes well beyond merely voting for it (he was its primary crusader). He organized the Gang of 14, which I contended at the time and still believe effectively killed Republican efforts to kill the Democrat filibustering of judicial nominees. And while he votes against unbalanced budgets, he has no problem with federal intervention in a wide range of matters that are outside the federal government's constitutional limits.

Here's a brief summary of John McCain's liberal past and why you shouldn't trust anything that this reptilian weasel has to say.

Voted NO to Bush's tax cuts - McCain voted against the tax cuts because doesn't like George Bush. He didn't do it out of 'conservative principles' - he did it to stick it in the eye of GW. Now he is saying that he voted against them because they didn't come with spending cuts. But he's lying! He never said that at the time.

The Gang of 14 - McCain led the pack which blocked conservative judicial nominees, and allowed moderate and activist judges to get an easier path to appointment. It was a slap in the face to conservatives.



McCain-Feingold - This legislation would have drastically limited ALL OF OUR FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS.

Terrorist Detainees at GitMo - Remember his "No water boarding stance?" He's more concerned with granting human rights to terrorists than supporting our military initiatives. He even made a reference to concentration camps, how original. He must be a devotee of the Daily KOS.

The "maverick" Sen. John McCain echoed one of the Left's most oft-cited and erroneous complaints about Gitmo on NBC's "Meet The Press" this weekend -- that detainees have been denied trials: "The weight of evidence has got to be that we've got to adjudicate these people's cases, and . . . if it means releasing some of them, you'll have to release them. Look, even Adolf Eichmann got a trial." (Can we put a lid on the Nazi analogies already? Crikey. A Knight-Ridder reporter was too smitten to be bothered by his Eichmann-invoking hyperbole: "McCain is emerging as a voice of conscience and nuance on the stay-or-go Guantanamo issue."Nuance?)

McCain-Kennedy-Edwards - Helped Trial lawyers in their ability to sue. Wow - what an important issue to get behind. NOT!

McCain-Leiberman - Global Warming legislation that would have smothered United States manufacturing jobs; a la Kyoto. It was a monstrosity that would have done nothing good for the US - nor would have impacted global warming (since Global warming it is a hoax).

Comprehensive Immigration Reform (aka "No Illegal Left Behind" Act) - He's an open-borders advocate. He even spoke before "La Raza" in 2004. He told the group that they needed to "get out there and push the amnesty bill" to everyone who would listen.

And don't forget that McCain's immigration advisor, Director Juan Hernandez, wants people to emphasize the "mexican" and not the American when it comes to national sovereignty. He wants the border dissolved and should be viewed as "just a region."

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The bottom line is that we just put up with 8 years of GW Bush. McCain, like Bush, has shown to be a man who cannot be trusted. He'll back any liberal agenda that is put before him. He'll cross the aisle and enact the inane legislation that the Dems are wont to promote.

And just like Hillary, he'll say anything to get elected.

I'm voting for Mitt Romney, and Bob Milan on Tuesday.

Obama "most liberal" senator

Barack Obama was ranked as the most liberal senator, based on his voting record.

I know folks like leftisbest and coldtype are probably saying,"So what?" right now because 'true evil' can only encorpulate in conservative republicans. Liberals are always good - in their minds.

The problem I have with the current liberal lineup is that the Liberal Movement has been hijacked. Liberals from the past who I respected; like JFK - were strong on defense, big on smaller government and genuinely wanted to help the middle class. Look at Kennedy's "Ask Not" speech....do you think anyone on the podium will ever give a speech that will be as memorable as JFK's?

Hardcore Marxism has infiltrated the Left. It is that simple.

The Left has adopted, consciously or not, the language of Marx and Lenin. Language is being censored. People are afraid to tell what they really think and feel out of fear of exile. University students who are conservative cannot air their beliefs to Liberal professors out of fear of receiving a lower grade. Class conflicts are being invented and fomented. Government is seen as a panacea and the nanny state keeps getting bigger and bigger. The government intrusion into our lives is getting more and more invasive.

So if you like winding down the road to Orwellian Totalitarianism, keep voting Democratic. As I posted back in July of 2007, Barack is an empty suit with nothing but platitudes to offer a desperate and hopeless voting base.

He wants to legalize marijuana, he wants to give drivers licenses to illegals and all he wants is big government to get bigger.

No thanks.

Yet Another Clinton scandal

"They're" not even in office yet and the Clintons are already roiling in shady financial deals.

The NYTimes is reporting that Bill Clinton helped seal a uranium mining deal for wealthy Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra that netted the Clintons hundreds of millions of dollars:

Just months after the Kazakh pact was finalized, Mr. Clinton’s charitable foundation received its own windfall: a $31.3 million donation from Mr. Giustra that had remained a secret until he acknowledged it last month. The gift, combined with Mr. Giustra’s more recent and public pledge to give the William J. Clinton Foundation an additional $100 million, secured Mr. Giustra a place in Mr. Clinton’s inner circle, an exclusive club of wealthy entrepreneurs in which friendship with the former president has its privileges.

Is "Slick Willy" going to accuse the Old Gray Lady of engineering a "hit-piece" on him and Hillary? Are they going to blame a nebulous "Vast RightWing Conspiracy" on this latest criminal act?

Who knows but these two power-mad miscreants will say and do anything to get power. Plain and simple.

Homeless psychopath murders cop

A "vagrant" man who was being questioned by New Orleans Police Officer Nicola Cotton regarding a rape, overpowered her, beat her then shot her with her duty weapon.

It really burns me when I hear "homeless advocates" cry and whine about how these destitute, drunken, criminal morons are in need of "rights" : the right to wander through traffic, the right to prowl around and steal from people's yards and garages, the right to drink, urinate and shit in public. And now we see one of them murdering a police officer.

God speed, Officer. RIP

Joe McCarthy Exonerated

You know the old stories about
Senator Joe McCarthy and his House on Un-American Activities that have been fomented by the soft and squishy Lefties in our liberal media.

They’re legion: McCarthy was on a “witch-hunt”, he was paranoid, he picked on people who didn’t agree with him, he “black-listed” people, he destroyed the lives and families of innocent people, there were no Communists where McCarthy said there were.

Well it turns out Senator McCarthy was right!

In a ground-breaking, 600+ page tome, M. Stanton Evans, journalism professor and board member of the American Conservative Union, has performed a transformation for the most reviled American in modern U.S. history, Sen. Joseph McCarthy.

Evans' book, "Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies" (Crown Forum, $29.95), is the result of six years of reading primary sources. Evans proves that almost everything about McCarthy in current history books is a lie and will have to be revised.

McCarthy accused the ACLU of collaborating with the soviets. That’s not a stretch – everything they do is designed to undermine our national sovereignty. McCarthy accused the Democratic party of "twenty years of treason," describes the American Civil Liberties Union as "listed as 'a front for, and doing the work of,' the Communist Party."

Anytime the collective Left, which has been hijacked by radical Marxists, demonizes some poor slob, it deserves a second look.

Thankfully, Senator McCarthy is getting a second look and it appears as if he was misjudged and intentionally maligned.

Remember, Adolf Hitler was a socialist and, a liberal democrat.

Study shows "diversity training" largely ineffectual

WaPo reports that a study just released shows that corporate diversity training is a big waste of time.

Of course, you and I know what diversity training really is: brainwashing.

Anytime you tell a group to ignore its experiences, judgement and common sense, simply so that they can fit it to an invented "social engineering scheme", you're going to get negative results.

I still remember diversity training we had to endure at the academy - bull dykes, who tipped the scales at 300lbs. each, telling us that it wasn't true that all lesbians like softball, some actually enjoy football too!

Imagine that. My only input during the discussions was, "For all the money they're spending on this non-sense, couldn't they find some lipstick lesbians?"

Lib Paper blasts celebrity suck-ups

The San Francisco Chronicle, long a bastion of Liberalism, finally woke up and took a large swipe at celebrities who, lacking the proper amount of public adoration, go to petty third world dictators in order to show how "avant garde" they are.

Poor Britney Spears was hauled away from her home in an ambulance last week, and the event got third billing on the "Today" show - following the Iowa caucus results and the storms in California. You know it's time to fire your publicist when your latest epic meltdown has to chase a few downed power lines in Millbrae. Maybe she should have had a few drinks at Chateau Marmont with Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir instead. Or spent the afternoon IM-ing Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. With so many celebrities making asses of themselves these days, D-list actors and has-been pop stars need to get more resourceful. And what could be more controversial than hanging out with the world's most notorious dictators and other authoritarian figures? As ridiculous as the idea sounds, it's already coming into style. Naomi Campbell had a flirty interview with Venezuela President Hugo Chavez for a British GQ article that comes out today. At one point the controversial leader and potential ruler-for-life asked her to "touch my muscles." Danny Glover is friends with Chavez, who is reportedly funding two of the San Francisco actor's forthcoming films. Others who have made recent Chavez-related headlines include Oliver Stone, Sean Penn and Barbara Walters, who placed Chavez on her list of the most fascinating people of 2007.

We've all seen it: the sycophantic lap-dancing that celebs like Sean Penn give to these monsters. It's disgusting and shows how deeply the Stockholm Syndrome has set in with these effete D-list Hollywood fools. They have no grasp of history nor, can they apparently make good decisions about who and what to support. In their minds: America Bad, Dictatorship Good!

Sean Penn, who writes from time to time for The San Fran Chronicle, wrote a response to Hartlaub's article. Link here. And Newsbusters chimes in with their 2 cents on the whole thing.

Penn claims that Chavez was "democratically elected" and that "dictators don't lose constitutional referendums."



Newsflash for Sean "Dude - I'm so wasted!" Penn: Dictators who lose constitutional referendums and continue to stay in power, by definition, are dictators!

Just goes to show you what type of people coddle up to Third-World Tyrants.

And Penn should focus more on his personal life and less on Facists in south america. Penn's wife recently filed for divorce. She claims that while she, the kids and Penn were on vacation, Sean pikced up 2 women and took them back to the family's hotel room. His wife then returned to the room and caught him bed with the paramours.

This explains alot

[H/T Rush]

There is a scientific foundation as to why the elderly vote overwhelmingly Democratic: their brains change as they get older and make them susceptible to lies, frauds and poor decision-making.

That covers about 80% of all Democrats.

In a series of tests they tried to identify common traits among seniors who had difficulty making decisions and spotting anything misleading to determine what makes them vulnerable to deception. "Our research suggests that elders who fall prey to fraudulent advertising are not simply gullible, depressed, lonely or less intelligent. Rather, it is truly more of a medical or neurological problem," said Natalie Denburg, a neuroscientist at the University of Iowa.

Moodys to down grade US Treasury notes

UPDATE:
The Labor Department reports that inflation rose 6.3 pct in 2007, the largest calendar year gain since 1981. Inflation rose 7.2 pct in the year through November. Portentous? Are we going the way of Ancient Rome? Some would say yes. The parallels are there: a detached elite ruling class, porous borders with unchecked immigration, economic malfeasance and a delinquent and disaffected middle class. If you read journals of Romans who lived around 300 AD, you'll see that most were writing about absolutely mundane matters: what they ate for the day, where they traveled, the weather, and who they met that day. They were oblivious to the impending implosion that would eventually arrive in the form of Alaric, King of the Visigoths. The Mexicans are our version of the barbarian hordes. We must beat them back and get control of our government spending.

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Patrick J. Buchanan writes a persuasive piece on the woes of the current subprime mortgage market.

Since it began to give credit ratings to nations in 1917, Moody's has rated the United States  triple-A. U.S. Treasury bonds have been seen as the most secure investment on earth. When crises erupt, nervous money seeks out the world's great safe harbor, the United States. That reputation is now in peril. Last week, Moody's warned that if the United States fails to rein in the soaring cost of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the nation's credit rating will be down-graded within a decade. [see "US's triple-A credit rating 'under threat', Financial Times, January 11 2008] Our political parties seem oblivious. Republicans, save Ron Paul, are all promising to expand the U.S. military and maintain all of our worldwide commitments to defend and subsidize scores of nations. Democrats, with entitlement costs drowning the federal budget in red ink, are proposing a new entitlement—universal health coverage for the near 50 million who do not have it—another magnet for illegal aliens. Moody's is telling America it needs a time of austerity, while the U.S. government is behaving like the governments we used to bail out.

Citigroup has posted a 4th quarter loss of 9.83 Billion - the last time they lost money was 1998. With write-downs and credit costs, the loss could exceeed 18.1 Billion.

As Buchanan points out, globalism is contributing to the problems we're seeing with this. Foreign investors have been systematically purchasing US interests. WIth our debt load, and with highquality goods being dumped into the US from Japan, we have been mortgaging our future.

We're now going to pay the price.

Citicorp got a $7.5 billion injection from Abu Dhabi and is now fishing for $1 billion from Kuwait and $9 billion from China. Beijing has put $5 billion into Morgan Stanley and bought heavily into Barclays Bank.

America is prostituting itself out to the highest bidders. Check out this story that shows just how China has a gun to our head.

So who do we have to blame for this? It falls on both sides of the aisle but a burgeoning social welfare system is contributing to it. We're great at giving, but terrible at trimming.

What we need is better efficiencies in our markets and less government regulations. At this tenuous moment in our fiscal history, do you really want to elect a president who promises a National Healthcare plan which would suck hundreds of billions of dollars out of your collective pockets?

No thanks!

Twice deported illegal alien is Serial Rapist

Police in Arizona have arrested and charged Santana Batiz Aceves as the man who raped 5 girls - all aged 12 to 14 years old - over an 18 month period. The attacks took place in Chandler Arizona.

Aceves has been deported two times but had re-entered the United States from Mexico, crossing the unsecured border.

"About 20 percent of the 9,423 inmates in Maricopa County jails on Friday had immigration holds," said Maricopa County sheriff's Deputy Doug Matteson. About 10 percent of Arizona's population is made up of Mexican nationals.

An interesting side note is that a spanish radio station KMYL (1190 AM) demanded that news outlets not issue a physical description of the suspected rapist, because they said that calling him "hispanic" amounted to racial profiling.

Although according to descriptions by all five rape victims, that the Chandler Rapist was Hispanic, the folks at KMYL don’t want anyone to know that crucial fact. Vice president for programming Mayra Nieves at New Radio Venture, KMYL’s parent company, has demanded that Chandler police stop informing the public that the rapist is Hispanic. Nieves ordered police to instead refer to the suspect as having “dark skin.” She said, “I think this is racial profiling,” and also accused police of “stereotyping.”

I feel that physical descriptions of vicious, predatory offenders should be broadcast and disseminated. Apparently special interest groups want only the positive side to immigration be broadcast. As it is illegal immigration is already contributing to increased crime rates, more deaths on our roads to DUI, more welfare expenditures, stresses on our healthcare and educational system, and roving gun battles with armed Mexicans that are spilling over the border into Texas.

And for those of you who are toying with the idea of voting for McCain, here is a nice syopsis of exactly why you should go lay down until the feeling of voting for this goof goes away.

Don't listen to the "sob stories" about "the human side" to illegal immigration: how Jose and Juanita had to crawl 80 miles through the desert to get to the US...blah....blah...blah - Get in line like everyone else, a$$hole!

Mexican Army incursions confirmed

It is now confirmed, though long suspected and reported, that armed Mexican army regulars have made, and are making, incursions across the US border and entering sovereign American soil.

The feds have documented 29 separate incidents involving uniformed Mexicans with heavy weapons, escorting vehicles out of the US.

For those of you who don't think illegal immigration is a big issue, I hope this wakes you up to the reality of the situation.

The U.S. government report notes that many of the incursions were both "armed" and "intentional" and cited one incident in a location where construction of a security fence was incomplete.

Immigration is a huge issue for American citizens, and now we see the GOP hopefuls backpedaling and trying to appear as if they're going to get tough on illegals.

It just proves the rule that during elections, the candidates stump from the right but then lead from the left. You'll see Clinton and Obama running on platforms that have a 'center-right' leaning. They know that they have to do that in order to get elected. Even McCain, Mr. OpenBorders himself, says that HE'S going to get tough on the border. I won't hold my breath! McCain never met an illegal that he didn't like.

As usual, Victor David Hanson tidies up the messy details on where the candidates are on illegal immigration.

The spin masters may think illegal immigration is an issue that pits conservative Republicans against liberal Democrats. But it doesn't always. Nowadays, worry about illegal immigration is just as likely to mean that African-Americans are terrified of racist alien gangs in Los Angeles. Asian-Americans are frustrated that their relatives with college degrees wait years to emigrate legally, while thousands without high-school diplomas to the south simply break the law to enter the United States. And many Mexican-Americans are probably tired of being expected to defend the indefensible of foreign nationals breaking immigration laws simply because they may share an ethnic heritage with illegal aliens.

It seems that everyone but the elites know that we, The People, want a secure border - NOW!

Vote for someone who will give us a secured southern border and less government.

Pentagon Specialist on Islam Fired out of Political Correctness

Bill Gertz of the Washington Times reports on a disturbing development within the intelligence ranks of those charged with fighting Islamic extremists and the war on terror.

The Pentagon's sole specialist on Islamic law, Maj. Stephen Coughlin (USAR), was confronted by Cmdr. Hesham Islam (USN ret.), an Egyptian-born, Arabic-speaking Muslim. Cmdr. Islam is an aide to the Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England.

According to Mr. Gertz, Mr. England's interlocutor and confidante confronted Stephen Coughlin seeking "to have Mr. Coughlin soften his views of Islamist extremism." Note the irony in this choice of words. "Islamist" and "extremism" — like "Islamofascism" and other euphemisms —are words that draw a PC curtain over mainstream Islam. They effectively shield the religion and its tenets from the scrutiny necessary to assess the ideology driving our jihadist enemies. Of course, lifting that PC curtain on Islam and its jihadist tenets is precisely the effect of Stephen Coughlin's Pentagon brief. It goes against what political correctness tells us; it also goes against what Islamic advocacy groups tell us.

So now the PC crowd are wallowing around inside our own Pentagon now? Cmdr. Islam is unable or unwilling to recognize that "his community" is cultivating a horribly violent and intolerant culture, a culture that is spreading like wildfire (mostly inside prisons).

I hope that publishing this story will throw some light on the situtation within the intelligence community. We cannot afford to have such politically correct "niceities" at work within our intelligence services. If a muslim is working there and doesn't like the fact that someone, correctly, identifies Islam itself as the problem with world wide violence and tyranny, then he doesn't belong in intelligence because he obviously has none.

Ousting Dick Durbin

Illinois senator Dick Durbin is up for re-election this year. If there is a God in heaven, Durbin will be removed from his senate seat this November with extreme prejudice. He's been a terrible senator and an embarrassment to Illinois.

He's shown himself to be an Open Borders, Big Government panderer, who has no grasp of foreign policy. I remember reading a piece on him right after he defeated Al Salvi. One of Salvi's campaigners saw a man wearing a Durbin button on his shirt while attending a rally. Salvi's man approached and said, 'You know Durbin is pro-choice." (Salvi is pro-life).

And the man didn't blink an eye when he responded, "No he isn't - he's pro-life." The campaigner just shook his head because that was happening all over Illinois. Durbin was just telling local groups of voters exactly what they wanted to hear. In any other situation you'd call it lying but with Durbin, not being truthful is just part of campaigning.

If you need a brief reminder of what a disaster Dick Durbin has been, here is a recap of his voting record:

* Voted NO to S1927 - the amendment to the 30 year old FISA legislation which authorized intelligence authorities to monitor foreigners suspected of terrorist activities. The amendment passed without Durbin or Obama's votes.

* Voted YES to HR976 - the State Children's Health insurance Program. The bill passed and takes away $60 Billion dollars from Illinois taxpayers in order to fund insurance programs for uninsured children. Isn't this the job of the child's parents? Why are we footing the bill for this? Oh yeah - I forgot: it's because Durbin wants an already burgeoning Federal Nanny State to get even bigger!

* Voted YES on the Comprehensive Immigration Plan (HR 1585) and YES on the cloture motion to keep the bill moving through committee. Durbin and, his political identical twin Barack Obama, both voted to extend rights and entitlements to illegal alients and their offspring, including the Dream Act, which gave illegal aliens tuition breaks for college. Remember that even war veterans didn't qualify for the goodies that Durbin and Obama wanted to extend to illegal aliens.

* Voted YES on HR1591 - which hardwired a deadline for troop withdrawl from Iraq.

* Voted YES on SJ Res 9 - another attempt of liberal democrats (this time Harry Reid sponsored it) to get a phased "redeployment" of US Troops in Iraq (ie. cut and run diplomacy).

* Voted NO on HR6061 - Secure Fence act of 2006

* Voted YES on HR810 - to take more of your money and push it into stem cell research.

* Voted NO on SJ Res 12 - voted against an amendment on desecration of the American flag. Durbin felt it important to take a stand on this one so that Libtards, hippies and 'artists' could have full protections if, and when, they decided to urinate, defecate or impune the flag of the United States of America. Thanks Dick!

* Voted YES to the gay marriage amendment (see Vote 163 on cloture motion)

* Voted NO on HR4297 which would have extended Bush's tax cuts to you.

* Voted NO to Sam Alito for Supreme Court justice. Also voted NO to John G. Roberts for Chief Justice.

* Voted NO to cut $40 Billion from Federal programs for welfare, child support and student lending programs. (see Vote 363 on the motion.)

* Voted YES on HR2863 which banned cruel, inhuman or 'degrading' treatment of detainees held by US forces at Camp Xray (Gitmo). Durbin also characterized our troops as nazis and that Guantanamo bay was like a "soviet gulag" - clearly Durbin has no grasp of history nor of what types of threats we face as a nation. here is the link to his comments on the senate floor.

* Voted NO (S256) to make it more difficult for people to declare bankruptcy.

* Voted NO to tort reform and to curtail the ability of plaintiffs to file class-action lawsuits against corporations by making cases that were filed in multiple states the responsibility of the federal courts.

Steve Sauerberg, Mike Psak and Andy Martin are all GOP contender's for Durbin's spot.

Let's hope this will be the last term for Dick Durbin. Illinois already has enough fat-cat, big spending, tax-You-to-death Democrats.

chocolate city of death

New Orleans' homicide rate soared in 2007, the AP is reporting. Ray Nagin's "Chocolate City" registered 209 homicides last year, a nearly 30 percent increase from the 161 recorded in 2006.

Gee I'm shocked! After the $400 BILLION that the Feds pumped into that state after Hurricane Katrina, you'd think that the citizens would have used the money to rebuild their homes and communities.

In fact, the mayor and his administration are bracing for hundreds of millions of dollars in federal aid expected to bankroll neighborhood reconstruction in 2008. But this comes as companies are fleeing the NOLA region in droves.

Anyone with experience in New Orleans knows that for many decades it has been a cesspool of crime, dysfunction and corruption. I think that Katrina actually did us all a favor - she tore the first few layers off the stinking on-yon and showed the whole world that New Orleans is just a 7 block area of commercialized fantasy. The vast majority of that area is, and will probably always be, an enclave of hardened criminals and multi-generational welfare families.

But even though 2007 was the bloodiest, the politicians will still have their hands out saying "Where's our money?" and will claim that all the violence and indolence is due to economic issues. That's like saying a 'troubled building' is to blame for criminal activity on a block. It's not the building - it's the inhabitants. Duh!