Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Post storm politics

Cal Thomas:

How one responds to a natural disaster like Katrina says a lot about his character and motives.

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The quickest way to avoid responsibility is to blame someone else for your shortcomings. Before assigning blame, it is helpful to be reminded of the state's checkered past.
Louisiana and New Orleans have a long history of corruption. In the late 19th century, a Louisiana lottery scandal led to abandonment of lotteries in every state that had them.
Mobster Frank Costello brought illegal slot machines to the state thanks to a deal he made with Gov. Huey P. Long. Then there were the illegal, but wide-open casinos in St. Bernard Parish in the 1940s and '50s.
Five years ago, Gov. Edwin Edwards was convicted of racketeering and conspiracy for taking political bribes over awarding riverboat casino gambling licenses. It was Edwards who, in 1983, uttered these immortal words: "The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy."
Why is this relevant to the current New Orleans disaster? Because in the past the levee board played fast and loose with funds it was given, as a former top state official told me.
In a May 21, 2001, article for the Louisiana Weekly newspaper, Amanda Furness quoted Stanley Riley, a plaintiff in a suit against the Orleans Levee District (OLD). Mr. Riley and his uncle, Harry Jones, have had a long-running legal battle with OLD over land they say is theirs but OLD claims for itself.
Mr. Riley alleges in the Furness story that OLD literally gambled away a lot of money -- funds that might have been used to shore up the levee system and prevent the Katrina disaster: "The levee board spent $20 million on [a] casino," Mr. Riley alleges. "Now they say they can't pay it back 'cause it's going to break them? That's not our problem." There have also been allegations of cronyism by board members who allegedly diverted levee funds to friends and relatives.
The federal government must share some of the blame for not being properly prepared for the storm, says former Republican Gov. Mike Foster. In a telephone interview, Mr. Foster told me, "The Feds cut us short. Louisiana supplies a lot of the nation's oil and gas, and we get no consideration in return." He means federal help in shoring up the wetlands buffer between Southern Louisiana and the Gulf that has been eroding.

Enviromentalist also bear some responsibility for stopping projects to protect New Orleans. Read the whole article.