WAR OF PERCEPTION

N.O. BACK TO NORMAL AFTER KATRINA

Five dead in bloody night in N.O.

Breaking what had been a welcome lull in violent deaths five people, including three brothers, were killed within a seven-hour span in New Orleans Friday night and Saturday morning.

Four of those deaths came in one incident in Treme where three brothers - two 16-year-olds and a 21-year-old, along with a 39-year-old friend, were shot and killed around 9 p.m.

Police said they received several 911 calls of a shooting near Orleans and Claiborne Avenues and when they arrived found the first victim inside of a store in the 700 block of North Claiborne Avenue. That victim was rushed to the hospital and later died.

At about the same time, other officers discovered three more victims in the 1700 block of St. Ann Street. According to the NOPD, one of the victims was on the porch with a gunshot wound to the head, a second was lying on the ground with a wound to the neck and the third had several gunshot wounds. All three victims were pronounced dead on the scene.

Homicide detective Gary Hamilton described the suspects as a light completed African-American male approximately 5"5' tall wearing a white "T" shirt with light blue jean shorts and shoulder length dreadlocks.  The second suspects is described as a very dark completed African-American male wearing a white "T" shirt, light blue jean shorts and a red baseball cap and were last seen fleeing northbound  n Saint Ann Street.            

Early Saturday morning police reported another killing in the 1500 block of St. Denis. That incident was reported around 4 a.m. Police arrived on the scene after a report of shots fired to find a man dead.

Police Superintendent Warren Riley blamed the shootings on a small group of troublemakers that he said seem determined to ruin the quality of life for everyone else in the city.

AP / July 29, 2006

KATRINA "VICTIMS" RUNNIN' GAMES ON THE WHITE MAN

Nothing new here...Just business as usual. Of course, they weren't really stealing from the taxpayer, they were trying to provide for their loved ones after the Katrina disaster.

Football tickets, vacations and a sex change operations, all necessities in life.

Wouldn't you do the same if you were in their shoes?

The article also fails to mention the race of these criminals...Anyone care to take a guess?

The Black man will keep "Runnin' games" on the White man, as long as he allows it. When will Whitey wise up? (PS)

FEMA funds spent on divorce, sex change

By LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press Writer

The government doled out as much as $1.4 billion in bogus assistance to victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, getting hoodwinked to pay for season football tickets, a tropical vacation and even a divorce lawyer, congressional investigators have found.

Prison inmates, a supposed victim who used a New Orleans cemetery for a home address, and a person who spent 70 days at a Hawaiian hotel all were able to wrongly get taxpayer help, according to evidence that gives a new black eye to the nation's disaster relief agency.

Federal investigators even informed Congress that one man apparently used FEMA assistance money for a sex change operation.

Agents from the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, went undercover to expose the ease of receiving disaster expense checks from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The GAO concluded that as much as 16 percent of the billions of dollars in FEMA help to individuals after the two hurricanes was unwarranted.

The findings are detailed in testimony, obtained by The Associated Press, that is to be delivered at a hearing Wednesday by the House Homeland Security subcommittee on investigations.

To dramatize the problem, GAO provided lawmakers with a copy of a $2,358 U.S. Treasury check for rental assistance that an undercover agent got using a bogus address. The money was paid even after FEMA learned from its inspector that the undercover applicant did not live at the address.

"This is an assault on the American taxpayer," said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the subcommittee that will conduct the hearing. "Prosecutors from the federal level down should be looking at prosecuting these crimes and putting the criminals who committed them in jail for a long time."

FEMA spokesman Aaron Walker said Tuesday that the agency, already criticized for a poor response to Katrina, makes its highest priority during a disaster "to get help quickly to those in desperate need of our assistance."

"Even as we put victims first, we take very seriously our responsibility to be outstanding stewards of taxpayer dollars, and we are careful to make sure that funds are distributed appropriately," he said.

FEMA said it has identified more than 1,500 cases of potential fraud after Katrina and Rita and has referred those cases to the Homeland Security inspector general. The agency said it has identified $16.8 million in improperly awarded disaster relief money and has started efforts to collect the money.

The GAO said it was 95 percent confident that improper and potentially fraudulent payments were much higher — between $600 million and $1.4 billion.

The investigative agency said it found people lodged in hotels often were paid twice, since FEMA gave them individual rental assistance and paid hotels directly. FEMA paid California hotels $8,000 to house one individual — the same person who received three rental assistance payments for both disasters.

In another instance, FEMA paid an individual $2,358 in rental assistance, while at the same time paying about $8,000 for the same person to stay 70 nights at more than $100 per night in a Hawaii hotel.

FEMA also could not establish that 750 debit cards worth $1.5 million even went to Katrina victims, the auditors said.

Among the items purchased with the cards:

_an all-inclusive, one-week Caribbean vacation in the Punta Cana resort in the Dominican Republic.

_five season tickets to New Orleans Saints professional football games.

_adult erotica products in Houston and "Girls Gone Wild" videos in Santa Monica, Calif.

_Dom Perignon champagne and other alcoholic beverages in San Antonio.

_a divorce lawyer's services in Houston.

"Our forensic audit and investigative work showed that improper and potentially fraudulent payments occurred mainly because FEMA did not validate the identity of the registrant, the physical location of the damaged address, and ownership and occupancy of all registrants at the time of registration," GAO officials said.

FEMA paid millions of dollars to more than 1,000 registrants who used names and Social Security numbers belonging to state and federal prisoners for expedited housing assistance. The inmates were in Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and Florida.

FEMA made about $5.3 million in payments to registrants who provided a post office box as their damaged residence, including one who got $2,748 for listing an Alabama post office box as the damaged property.

To demonstrate how easy it was to hoodwink FEMA, the GAO told of an individual who used 13 different Social Security numbers — including the person's own — to receive $139,000 in payments on 13 separate registrations for aid. All the payments were sent to a single address.

Likewise, another person used a damaged property address located within the grounds of Greenwood Cemetery in New Orleans to request disaster aid. Public records show no record of the registrant ever living in New Orleans.

Instead, records indicate that for the past five years, the registrant lived in West Virginia — at the address provided to FEMA, the GAO said.

ALL THE KINGS HORSES AND GOVERNMENT AID, COULDN'T BRING LITERACY TO KATRINA REFUGEES

New Orleans is one of the most violent cities in the world with one of the highest rates of illiteracy in the world. This is common when non-Whites are given control of civilization.

All the state tests in the world won't stop the "Africanization" of our culture. Katrina refugee's have shown the world the benefits of this "Africanization" process...Crime, disease, and illiteracy.

Why can't Johnny read and write?

Because he is too busy raping, robbing and doing drugs...He is celebrating his "African Roots".

One need only look at Africa to prove this point. When we cease fighting for civilization, man will revert back to his primitive state and the law of the jungle will reign supreme. (PS)

Ga. to exclude Katrina students' scores

[By KATE BRUMBACK, Associated Press Writer]

Georgia schools will not have to count test scores from thousands of Hurricane Katrina evacuees in their progress reports this year, the state's top education official said.

Instead, federal officials have granted the state's request to list the evacuees' results in a separate category, said state schools Superintendent Kathy Cox said.

"They're not going to hold Georgia schools responsible for the product of Louisiana," Cox said Thursday at a state Board of Education meeting.

Georgia saw its overall test scores drop this year, but it does not yet have a breakdown for Katrina and non-Katrina students. State education officials attributed the overall decline to a new curriculum and more challenging tests, but they also worry that the evacuees' performance will not match up to other Georgia students, as has happened elsewhere.

Besides having their lives uprooted, the evacuees may be following a different curriculum in their new schools, said state Education Department spokesman Dana Tofig.

The standardized tests are part of the federal No Child Left Behind law, which mandates reading and math proficiency for all public school students by 2014. Schools receiving federal poverty aid must demonstrate annually that students in all racial categories are progressing or risk penalties that include extending the school year, changing curriculum or firing administrators and teachers.

Texas and Tennessee are also counting evacuee test scores in a separate category this year.

Louisiana education officials expect that many student displaced by last August's hurricane and flooding will not perform well on standardized tests in other states, said Meg Casper, a spokeswoman for the Louisiana Department of Education.

Many evacuees were from New Orleans, which had Louisiana's lowest performing schools before Katrina.

"We're not surprised that they're struggling in the states where they've been displaced to because they were struggling in Louisiana," Casper said Friday.

But she said other states must now take responsibility for the students who have moved to their school districts.

Georgia will count the evacuees' scores next year, when they will have been in Georgia schools for almost two years, Cox said.

Katrina evacuees in Georgia schools numbered more than 7,000 on April 1.

The roughly 35,000 Katrina students living in Texas scored considerably lower on a statewide standardized exam than Texas children this year, and thousands risk being held back.

Texas teachers and state officials blame the low scores on New Orleans' poor school system, the trauma of being forced from their homes, and the possibility that some students were put in the wrong grade after arriving in Texas with no records.