Legal Commentary

They Really Really Don't Care About New Orleans -- US Accepts Repairs to Floodwalls Made of Used Newspaper

By Professor University of Miami School of Law

The tragedy of New Orleans continues.

4 Investigates: Floodwalls stuffed with newspaper?

the witness says two years ago, he saw the contractor filling the expansion joint or opening between the floodwalls with newspaper.

“The whole length of the wall was stuffed with newspaper.”

And when he confronted the contractor, the contractor blamed Washington for the substandard work.

“He basically told me when Congress sent down the money, it would be repaired the proper way.”

But during a recent trip to the area, two years later, it was apparent that didn’t happen. Much of the newspaper had deteriorated or been eaten by bugs, but some still remained.

And, by the way, Congress had sent the money, and the contract called for a proper rubber joint. The Army Corps of Engineers, which is supposed to supervise the construction, says everything is just fine, nothing to see, move along now.

Does anyone in DC care about this stuff? Or have they just written New Orleans off?

How does an administration get away with presiding over the destruction of a major American city, botching the emergency rescue and then not fixing it afterwards? Sorry — silly question: they do it the same way they get away with a war of choice based on lies, torture, stealing an election, refusals to appear before Congress, signing statements that announce their plans to ignore the laws, and siphoning of several fortunes to their friends.

“Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?”

“A Republic, if you can keep it.”

ATTRIBUTION: The response is attributed to BENJAMIN FRANKLIN—at the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, when queried as he left Independence Hall on the final day of deliberation—in the notes of Dr. James McHenry, one of Maryland’s delegates to the Convention.

Still a Republic, or devolved to a revolving monarchy? The next few years may decide it.

Full post as published by Discourse.net on April 30, 2008 (boomark / email).