Obama To Visit Post-Katrina New Orleans

It was announced by the AP that globe trotting Barack Obama is scheduled to make a domestic spin from the East to West Coast (for a black tie fundraiser in San Francisco, home to the bulk of the Global Socialists within one of the mainstream parties) via New Orleans in order to do a post-Katrina checkup.

As one who has family that was evacuated for both Katrina and Gustav, and a survivor myself of Gustav while there for an extended stay last year due to a family members illness and then subsequent surgery (although my 14 year old car is another story), it would appear that much could also be done to help the struggling Louisiana economy post-Katrina in providing new jobs for some of those displaced and still homeless.

Louisiana, of course, has seen a huge migration of the illegal immigrant population, most of which are being hired by the government contractors for the reconstruction.

Recently, the New Orleans City Council and its state legislators have been busy attempting also to protect them from some of those same government contractors. Some of which apparently have been withholding payment for their work even with those great discounts in taxation they receive for hiring foreigners as opposed to Americans.

With corporate America other than those that determine those salaries, the executives and Boards of Directors, even cheap foreign labor is not cheap enough to max out those profits on the repairs.

Of course, many have also flooded in from Texas and other nearby states in the construction industry. Many of which informed me while I was in Katrina ravaged East New Orleans and the Chalmette area were being paid $300 per day for clearing the debris. After getting all their mandated shots, of course.

The security detail checkpoint that I had to go through in order to get to a nearby hotel I stayed in (whose elevator still had no electricity that visit, almost three years later, nor did the local corner gas station store) was actually there in order to protect the heavy equipment from vandalism or theft.

Not those living or staying in the area at all.

This area, of course, suffered much of the damage due to a nearby levee which broke the day after the storm.

My sister's inlaws returned to their home in Chalmette four weeks later when the power was restored and found the water line at the 10 foot level in their home, which then had to be totally destroyed and rebuilt. They were fortunate. They had flood insurance.

Many did not, and were and still are being given the run around by the insurers even though a great deal of the damage is clearly Katrina related. Many lost their roofs which resulted in total destruction even before the levees broke.

Obama has promised and highlighted his commitment to pump a great deal of money into the area in order to rebuild the infrastructure that was destroyed. But if some of those government contractors are now withholding payment for some of their illegal workforce, I just wonder what other corners they are cutting in the repairs themselves.

Louisiana is notorious, after all, for having some of the worst streets and roads due to the fact that much of the taxes that are collected are pumped also into the tourism industry rather than infrastructure needs.

And the beautiful homes in the French Quarter, America, did survive since they were so well constructed over 200 years ago. And built, of course, on the highest ground available.

However, many of those owners had to end up placing those homes also on the market due to the astronomical increases then in insurance for all those living in or near any of those levees, like within 200 miles from many of the homeowners' reports. The entire state actually is "high risk" due to those two storms within less than five years.

There is also a new edict from recent reports of some of the homeowners that the state has enacted a law that requires that those that owned homes that were affected by the storms MUST rebuild within a certain amount of time, or lose their land to the state.

And, of course, new building standards for flood prone now areas. There are now additional costs of construction that are required so that homes are now, in some case, mandated to be built on concrete pilings 10 feet above the ground.

Except, of course, for those that are being subsized with federal funding, or those that are being built with private non-profit funding for those displaced low income families. Which simply means if another should occur, they or their posterity will again be homeless.

How's that for "property rights?"

Seizing now the land of some of the victims who certainly may not be able to rebuild with the cost now of insurance to rebuild on those tracts of land. Which law, of course, depresses the price those owners can expect even from selling the land, or using it for some other purpose such as merely as security for any other purchased property.

Many of whom were also in the lower income brackets to begin with, and thus have little savings for down payments on new homes in the area, or any other state for that matter. And now without even the wealth they had built up in the land itself to use as a factor in negotiating for a new or replacement home post-Katrina.

Which is why Louisiana does have one of the lowest income levels per capita at this point with the aftershocks of Katrina still reverberating, Brad Pitt's efforts notwithstanding, since even those low cost homes being built still require the banker's due and upfront costs for financing.

Most of those still standing homes in the Quarter which are on the market are being sold and marketed to the British and listed with Sotheby's, not local realtors or real estate companies.

I ran into several while walking through the Garden District last spring. Their money is now at a higher exchange rate, and it does appear that the British are buying up a great deal of America's assets, including its internet and television stations, and now even those stately old Louisiana homes.

It's gotten to the point that as an American, and refugee from Arizona due to the foreign invasion which has occurred there, I do feel like a stranger in a strange land.

My own country.

I hope Mr. Obama isn't just using this visit once again to push his globalism agenda, although will find a more favorable audience now that there are so many foreigners now who have taken the place of the Americans who were forced to flee during Katrina.

His scouters and advisors might have warned him. Maybe he should hold two townhalls at this point. One in English. The other in Spanish.

Just to make sure that all "stakeholders" are well informed and reassured that the "rebuilding" efforts go as planned.

Except that part of his speech that was released also included the fact that part of his mission is to advise those townhall attendees that Washington will soon be easing funds so that residents can become self-sufficient.

Maybe he needs to speak with the insurers about that.

Or create some new jobs by inspecting the government contractors labor force, and travel through the French Quarter and Garden District and speak with the new owners, the British.

Before he heads off on Air Force One for the San Francisco black tie event.

Boycotting Discretionary Air Travel: Are Random Strip Searches Next?

Recently an article was published in CNN Money quoting the Air Transport Association, an association of executives from the airline industry, predicting there would be approximately 7% fewer airline passengers this summer due to the economic conditions now in the United States.

I would state as a former primarily vacation airline passenger that the reduction in Americans traveling during the summer months has declined for discretionary travel steadily since 9/11.

Not out of fear, but due to the fact now that traveling to vacation destinations for many Americans is more hassle free driving than flying anymore. Driving to California from Arizona takes six hours by car, but now can take just as long or longer by air.

It isn't simply the expense involved, it is the invasive security procedures now conducted for domestic travel in the United States that is primarily to blame, in this writer's view.

It has gotten to the point where the surveillance industry in this country is one of the fastest growing industries, and largest stakeholders in government contracts.

So lucrative has this industry become and vital to the U.S. government domestic surveillance program that the Department of Homeland Security is now purchasing, with stimulus monies, full body scanners for major domestic airports, to be used primarily against its own citizens due to the free entry and exit passes awarded international travelers during and prior to the Bush Administration.

Since most of the incidents which have compromised American citizen's security have been from foreigners as demonstrated by 9/11 and the shoe bomber incident, the focus on domestic travel rather than international security does seem backward, since "foreigners" actually travel from outside the U.S. in order to get here in the first place, or breach the U.S. borders and enter illegally through our borders with Canada and Mexico.

At the present time it take no less than two full hours prior to flight time in order to undergo the security checks for both passengers and baggage. And though it was a British citizen responsible for the shoe bombing incident, all domestic travelers in the U.S. are now required to remove even their shoes before boarding.

That doesn't take into consideration the amount of time that is also lost waiting on the tarmacks for flights to depart or arrive due to the amount of both domestic and international flights, many of which are less than half full.

Deregulation of our national airports has actually resulted in more pollution, and higher costs in the long run. And crowded airports that have made most vacations anything but relaxing.

In fact, since my last experience flying to a funeral for a relative on the East Coast from my home in the West that took more than twelve hours to complete with the new "shoe removal" requirements, I haven't flown in four years.

The American people were not the cause of 9/11, yet it is the American people who are now being strip searched and monitored in ever increasing degrees domestically, while the international airport procedures are becoming less and less secure with each passing year.

I guess so that at least the next potential international terrorist is not denied the opportunity to visit Disneyland, or attend the next global corporate board meeting.

Expect to now be charged more and more fees in order to take your baggage with you. It appears banking practices have now infiltrated the airline industry.

Soon, I'm sure, there will be additional fees instituted for those bag lunches, and the privilege of those xrays prior to boarding at the security checks. Also charges for the upgrades for the shoe removal procedures in order to now track your carbon footprints.

We wouldn't want to interfere with our "free trade," agreements, or the "free market" competitive airline industry and their profit margins in order to effectively reduce that non-existent excess carbon instead in perhaps restricting U.S. international ports of entry and flights, now would we?

Apparently not if it affects the lucrative gadget industry stakeholders and their economic growth at the cost of the American taxpayers obviously.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/05/15/news/economy/summer_air_travel/index.htm