KATRINA
Three Years Later

Today marks the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina hitting the GulfCoast. On August 29, 2005, Katrina cut "a 125-mile swath of destruction stretching from coastal Alabama across Mississippi to the French Quarter and the Superdome." Katrina was the costliest hurricane in American history and the third deadliest, killing 1,800 people. New Orleans was particularly hard-hit, which submerged 80 percent of the city. Sadly, as the anniversary of Katrina nears, New Orleans is bracing for another storm, Gustav, which is projected to hit the GulfCoast early next week as a Category 3 hurricane. The development of Gustav prompted Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) to proclaim a state of emergency and prepare "hundreds of buses and emergency shelters to help residents flee should Gustav strike as expected." Gustav's approach also caused the cancellation of events commemorating the Katrina anniversary. The threat of another hurricane serves to highlight the progress that New Orleans has made in the last three years, and the work that still remains cleaning up and repairing the city.

BUSH VISIT A 'REMINDER OF BROKEN PROMISES': Last week, President Bush appeared in New Orleans to say that "hope is coming back" to the city, due to $126 billion in disaster aid sent to the region in the last three years. "The good future is here," Bush said. "I predicted New Orleans would come back as a stronger and better city. We helped deliver $126 billion in taxpayer money." Three years ago, however, Bush was preoccupied as Katrina hit. While 75 percent of New Orleans residents do "feel hopeful about the future of the greater New Orleans area," Bush's visit was more a "reminder of broken promises" than the sign of hopeful future. In 2005, Bush did not organize a federal response to Katrina for two days after the storm hit, despite repeated requests for assistance from former Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco (D) and reports that levees in New Orleans had been breached. He then spent the following days claiming -- falsely -- that no one anticipated the breach of the levees and that he was "satisfied with the [federal] response" to the storm. In 2006, the New York Times reported that to federal aid to the region hit by Katrina was plagued by "breathtaking waste and fraud." The New York Times called the waste of federal dollars "one of the the most extraordinary displays of scams, schemes and stupefying bureaucratic bungles in modern history, costing taxpayers up to $2 billion." Last week, the Bush administration announced that the funds sent to the GulfCoast region for hurricane recovery were "sufficient" and that there are "enough funds in the pipeline, to get the mission done."

PERSISTENT PROBLEMS: Even if "hope is back" in New Orleans, massive problems resulting from the hurricane remain, including "significant debris management issues," and "a cleanup fraught with environmental issues." While "97% of the population has returned to Hancock, Harrison, and Jackson counties, the three areas hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina," New Orleans still has a far greater proportion of vacant homes than any other city in the country," with "more than one in three residential addresses vacant or unoccupied." According to the research and advocacy institute PolicyLink, "thousands of residents who want to return home are facing a critical rental housing shortage, inadequate rebuilding grants and a recovery plagued by red tape and ever-changing rules." Part of the problem is the federal Road Home program, which is "the main conduit by which federal funds were to compensate homeowners for the damage wrought" by Katrina. "In New Orleans, 4 of every 5 Road Home recipients rebuilding their homes did not get enough money to cover their repairs," with an average shortfall of $54,586. As of March, "only 13% of the $1.6 billion in the state's emergency community development block grant funds had benefited lower-income victims." Further compounding New Orleans' troubles with Gustav approaching, the Associated Press conducted a yearlong review of levee work which revealed "a pattern of public misperception, political jockeying and legal fighting, along with economic and engineering miscalculations, that threaten to make New Orleans the scene of another devastating flood."

HAVE THE MEDIA FORGOTTEN NEW ORLEANS?: Earlier this week, the Independent's Richard Holledge published an article proclaiming that in the last three years the media "forgot the city of jazz and jambalaya." "Three years after Hurricane Katrina, the world's media has lost sight of the ongoing misery in New Orleans," he wrote. "Coverage by the international and national news media in the run-up to the anniversary is negligible...One of the world's most cataclysmic natural disasters, one made worse by official incompetence and corruption, is almost forgotten." Conservative talker Glenn Beck, however, has made sure to deride the rebuilding of New Orleans as the anniversary nears, saying, "We shouldn't spend a single dime of taxpayers' money in a place where - I don't care where it is - where it is in a flood zone." Jon Amoss, editor of New Orleans' Times-Picayune, echoed Holledge's sentiment, saying, "I don't think we are on people's minds. We have to contend with those voices, particularly on pop radio, which say 'New Orleanians with their eternal whining – why don't they pull themselves up by their boot straps?'" But highlighting the continuing role Katrina plays in the life of New Orleanians, Amoss added "I wondered a year-and-a-half ago whether there would ever come a time when the word hurricane or Katrina would not appear on, or near, page one [of the Times-Picayune]. There have been some days when there hasn't been a single story on page one, but that is still a rarity because it is the fabric of our life."

Under the Radar

HUMAN RIGHTS -- LAWSUIT AGAINST KBR ALLEGES 'SLAVERY,' 'FORCED LABOR': A Washington law firm filed a lawsuit this week against Iraq contractor KBR, "alleging that the company and its Jordanian subcontractor engaged in the human trafficking of Nepali workers," the Washington Post reported yesterday. The suit states that 13 Nepali men were recruited for kitchen work in Jordan only to have their passports seized upon arrival and "told they were being sent to a military facility in Iraq," claiming that the trafficking scheme was engineered by KBR and its Jordanian subcontractor, Daoud & Partners. Yesterday, TPM Muckraker dug through the complaint, which called the these actions "slavery." "Defendants' actions as set forth above constitute the torts of trafficking in persons, involuntary servitude, forced labor, and slavery," the complaint stated, adding, "Trafficking in persons is a modern day form of slavery."

LABOR -- BUSH ADMINISTRATION PREPARES 'ANTI-UNION' EXECUTIVE ORDER: The Wall Street Journal reports today that the "Bush administration is weighing an executive order that would eliminate a union-preferred method of labor organizing at large government contractors." The new order would require such contractors "to use secret-ballot elections for union organizing" instead of the "card-check system in which workers can form a union if a majority of them sign a union-authorization card." Companies tend to prefer the secret-ballot method, but "some are willing to accept card checks to avoid a fight" with unions. Labor leaders fear the order could "derail some current organizing drives" and call the proposed order a "gift to the business community 'from the most antiunion administration that we've seen.'" The order comes as the Employee Free Choice Act -- which would make it easier for workers to unionize -- is stalled in Congress by a conservative-led filibuster. The Employee Free Choice Act would guarantee workers' right to choose between the secret-ballot or the card-check systems.

TORTURE -- RETIRED GENERALS SCOLD BUSH ADMINISTRATION ON TORTURE, PENTAGON SPOKESPERSON: On Wednesday night, The Progress Report spoke with Lt. Gen Harry Soyster and Ret. Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, at a Human Rights First reception honoring retired generals who have spoken out against President Bush's torture policies. Soyster criticized Bush's veto of a bill banning the CIA from waterboarding, saying "it doesn't matter where your paycheck comes from." "Because the Central Intelligence Agency has authorized torture, then Americans are torturing," said Soyster. Taguba reiterated Soyster's critique of Bush's torture policies and also slammed the Pentagon's military analyst program, which the New York Times revealed in April. He said he found it "incredible" that generals would agree to be the Pentagon's spokesperson and said military "experts" should do their own research. "They don't call you an expert because they fed you information. That means you're just a talking head," said Taguba of the analysts in the Pentagon program. As the Times report revealed, the Pentagon program explicitly barred participants from saying they were repeating someone else's facts: "The access came with a condition. Participants were instructed not to quote their briefers directly or otherwise describe their contacts with the Pentagon."

Think Fast

U.S. forces have arrested a deputy of Ahmad Chalabi, who was once the Bush administration's favorite Iraqi politician, "and implicated him in bombings that killed Americans and Iraqis." The U.S. military says the deputy, Ali al-Lami, "was working with the 'highest echelons' of the Iranian 'special groups' criminals."

As tropical storm Gustav approaches, "oil producers have begun to halt drilling and operations in the Gulf of Mexico" and are now "evacuating hundreds of workers from rigs and production platforms."

As New Orleans prepares for another hurricane, a new report "presents the clearest picture yet of deaths from Katrina in Louisiana." "Of the nearly 1,000 who died, almost half were 75 or older" and 51 percent were black, according to the study in the journal Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness. The researchers hope the findings "will aid public health and emergency preparedness efforts" in the future.

"Five industry groups have sued the Interior Department over a rule to protect the polar bear that they say unfairly singles out business operations in Alaska for their contribution to global warming." The oil and gas, mining, and manufacturing groups asked a judge to prevent laws designed to protect the bear from being used "to block projects that release heat-trapping gases in the state."

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (R-FL) on Thursday named Charles T. Canady to the State Supreme Court. The move "drew praise from conservatives," as Canady is a "a former congressman who played a major role in the impeachment of President Bill Clinton."

Tax rebate checks and robust exports "helped the U.S. economy grow at a faster-than-expected rate in the second quarter." But "economists warned that those two pillars couldn't prop growth up for long" because the rebate checks' "one-time boost to consumer spending is largely over.

And finally: Speaking last night at the Democratic convention in Denver, Barney Smith -- a displaced manufacturing worker from Marion, IN -- delivered the line of the night. "We need a president who puts Barney Smith before Smith Barney," he said. (The brokerage firm Smith Barney "had its image tarnished for its financing of Enron Corp., the Houston-based energy company which had an epic collapse due to dodgy accounting procedures.") Watch it here.

Good News

"Iraq's influential Shi'a cleric, Moqtada Sadr, has indefinitely extended a ceasefire being observed by members of his Mehdi Army militia," BBC reports.

State Watch

MARYLAND: "Maryland could face a budget shortfall of up to $1 billion in its next fiscal year."

ILLINOIS: Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) has "cut hundreds of state jobs and closed nearly two dozen historic sites and parks" due to budget restraints.

CALIFORNIA: State "is close to adopting a law intended to slow the increase" in greenhouse emissions.

Blog Watch

THINK PROGRESS: Fox News: President Bush might not speak at the Republican National Convention on Monday because of Gustav.

WONK ROOM: "Concern" about refugee camp massacre: the responsibility to fret?

YGLESIAS: The generation gap and climate change.

Daily Grill

"The policies of our country comply with our law, which prohibits torture."
-- Vice President Cheney, 8/27/08

VERSUS

"[T]he Central Intelligence Agency has authorized torture...Americans are torturing."
-- Lt. Gen. Harry Soyster, 8/27/08