Tanner supports GOP on Abortion Vote - Ford absent

GOP Seeks To Prohibit Interstate Abortions

74% of House Dems Vote IN FAVOR of Interstate Abortions

Tanner supports GOP – Ford does not vote

In a last ditch effort before the upcoming congressional recess, Republican members of the House re-introduced a bill Tuesday to require parental notification for minors seeking abortions out of state.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, 34 states have either parental consent or notification laws (Utah has both), but there is no national law prohibiting a minor from traveling from one state where a notification or consent law exists to another state where there is no statute in order to get an abortion.
Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) called the federal status quo "awful."

"Children can't get their ears pierced in this country without parental consent, but they can get an abortion," he said.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who wrote the bill, initially introduced the legislation in February 2005. It was passed by the House, but died in the Senate.

"We as parents have a right to know what is going on in our daughters' lives with regard to a potentially life-threatening medical procedure," Ros-Lehtinen said before reintroducing the "Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act" on Tuesday.

She said the bill "seeks to put an end to the abortion clinics and family planning organizations that exploit young, vulnerable girls by luring them to recklessly disobey state laws."

The bill, she said, "is a vital component towards changing the way abortionists do business and will have significant impact on how abortionists deal with girls seeking an abortion."

"Protecting young girls from a life-threatening procedure is not something to be compromised," Ros-Lehtinen said.

But Vicki Saporta, president and CEO of the National Abortion Federation said the proposed legislation would be "harmful" to teens.

"In most instances, parents know about a teenage daughter's decision to terminate a pregnancy," she said. "However, the government cannot legislate good family communications and parental involvement may not be a realistic option for teens who come from homes that are emotionally or physically abusive, or for those who are victims of rape or incest."

Saporta said that as the bill would require parental notification, "a teen may be compelled to pursue drastic alternatives in order to avoid involving her parents." The teen may also "encounter dangerous delays as she attempts to navigate the legal system and obtain a judicial bypass," instead of seeking out "trusted aunts, sisters, grandmothers, or other friends as a resource," she added..

Bryson Lists Bredesen Administration Corruption

(NASHVILLE, TN) – GOP nominee for Governor Jim Bryson today called on Governor Bredesen to immediately begin a full and independent investigation of Economic and Community Development head Matt Kisber for questionable loans from a lobbyist to a company on whose board Kisber sat. At the time, Kisber was Chairman of the House Finance Committee and the lobbyist, Brenda Lawson, had an array of business before the state legislature.

“Phil Bredesen must immediately investigate the charges surrounding Commissioner Kisber,” said Sen. Bryson. “Tennesseans should not have to depend on the media to root out unethical behavior in state government. Commissioners should not use their office for personal gain, and should certainly not be hired if they have used a previous office for personal gain.”

The charges aired on Nashville’s WKRN-TV include documents that show unpaid loans of nearly $1.25 million in 2000 from the accounts of Brenda Lawson and her then-husband Steve McKenzie to Vision Depot, an optical contractor owned by a childhood friend of Kisber’s. Kisber was a board member of the company and has been unable to produce documents showing how much he profited from the firm. Vision Depot owner Paul LaGrange has since become Assistant Commissioner of ECD and the company has gone out of business.

“This continues Governor Bredesen’s pattern of hiring ethically challenged cabinet members and high level state government appointees,” said Bryson spokesman Lance Frizzell. “His poor management and lack of ethical standards have led to a corrupt and scandalous administration.”

Many Bredesen commissioners and high level appointees have made headlines for unethical behavior:

Deputy Governor Dave Cooley’s TBI file was subpoenaed last week as a part of the ongoing court case involving a Highway Patrolman fired for his support of Bredesen’s 2002 opponent. Bredesen’s highest ranking cabinet member also had a speeding ticket fixed though, inexplicably, he claimed no knowledge of how it happened (see second bullet point).http://www.wtvf.com/Global/story.asp?S=5446348

Department of Safety Commissioner Fred Phillips was forced to resign after media reports that his department was involved in a cash-for-promotions scheme at the Tennessee Highway Patrol.http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060110/NEWS0201/601100364/1001/NEWS

Department of Corrections Commissioner Quentin White resigned under a cloud of controversy due to allegations of sexual harassment in his office.http://www.nashvillepost.com/news/2006/1/5/steve_adams_dismissed_after_harassment_probe

Mack Cooper, Gov. Bredesen’s chief lobbyist, was placed on administrative leave last year and eventually resigned due to workplace harassment issues. Notes of the investigation were shredded.http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050827/NEWS0201/508270344/1001

Department of Commerce and Insurance Assistant Commissioner Butch Lewis was forced to resign after using another individual’s email address to threaten an elected official.http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060829/news0201/608290349

The Bryson campaign also announced that it would return a campaign contribution from Brenda Lawson’s former husband, Steve McKenzie, even though he has not been accused of any wrongdoing and was never a lobbyist

Dems support the ACLU

The bill, H.R. 2679, would deny legal fees and out-of-pocket expenses to be taken from taxpayers and given put into the pockets of groups like the ACLU when they successfully sue against references to God and religion in public settings, has passed! This is good news, but it isn't the end of the battle. The legislation still needs to pass the Senate and for that to happen we will need all the support we can get. Contact your Senators and let them know you support it!

86% of ALL Democrat in Congress voted AGAINST eliminating the ACLU collecting taxpayer money for lawsuits against religion.

Tennessee Congresmen Cooper and Tanner voted AGAINST (with the ACLU)

Ford DID NOT vote on this bill.

ALL Tennessee Repubs voted YES (against the ACLU)

H.R.2679 Title: To amend the Revised Statutes of the United States to eliminate the chilling effect on the constitutionally protected expression of religion by State and local officials that results from the threat that potential litigants may seek damages and attorney's fees.

Amends the Revised Statutes of the United States to limit the remedy to injunctive relief and deny attorneys' fees in a civil action against a state or local official for deprivation of rights where the deprivation consists of a violation of a prohibition in the Constitution against the establishment of religion.

Democrats use Obion County Chamber - Again

Democrats use Obion County Chamber of Commerce - Again

Several weeks ago, US Senate candidate Harold Ford, Junior made a campaign stop at the “spec” building in the Union City Industrial Park.

The Obion County Chamber of Commerce and the Obion County Economic and Community Development Corporation Director Jim Cooper (seen on right holding Ford campaign sign) pulled out all the stops for this event. Phone calls and emails were sent to Chamber members and news media.

When the big campaign bus pulled into the industrial park Chamber officials were on hand to meet and greet Candidate Ford.

TCWatch reported this event and the close involvement by Chamber officials. When Director Cooper was questioned about the propriety of the event he replied,

“It is exactly true and it is not an embarrassment to Obion County. The Chamber has not endorsed anyone for any public office nor will it do so.

Mr. Ford is a sitting US Congressman who ask to come to our county to see what we are doing and to see if there was anything he could do to help our economic development cause in the future.

We are glad he is coming as a sitting US Congressman and we would afford the same hospitality to any other federal or state office holder at any time.

This realm of every time someone talks to a candidate it means they are dedicating their support politically has to drive you guys absolutely crazy if you take offense at this.

We welcome help and assistance from any source, be it Republican or Democrat. You should realize that and slow down the rhetoric.”

Director Cooper was later contacted by US Senate Candidate Bob Corker’s staff and advised that Corker would be coming to visit the FabSouth factory in the Troy Industrial Park.

FabSouth is a member of the Obion County Chamber of Commerce and is located near Troy’s “spec” building.

The Chamber did not notify their members of this campaign stop even though a member business was being visited in Troy’s Industrial Park. No Chamber officials visited with Candidate Corker.

When questioned by the Union City Daily Messenger newspaper about the apparent disparity of treatment for candidates visiting the area, Mr. Cooper said,

“When Ford came, they called and wanted to visit the spec building. If I can get spec building coverage, I will do it.

If Mr. Corker wants to come and visit the spec building, I would be glad to meet him there.

The Chamber does not endorse candidates nor will they. I do not endorse candidates. But anyone who wants to come and visit the spec building and talk about it, I will meet them any time and any place.”

Later when State Senator Jim Bryson’s staff notified the Chamber that Bryson would be making a campaign stop in Union City at Kiwanis Park (across the street from the Chamber office) TCWatchers felt sure that Director Cooper would honor his previous pledge to “afford the same hospitality to any other federal or state office holder at any time.”

But again the Chamber did not support the visit by a sitting State Senator and did not walk across the street to meet or greet.

When TCWatch questioned Director Cooper, he responded,

“Go to press with whatever you want. I did not attend the Bryson event as I’m paid to do a job for the community and for that they expect me to perform that particular function, not attend political rallies.

The congressman came here to visit the "spec" building and yes we met him there and explained our programs.

By the way he was accompanied by OUR US CONGRESSMAN.

Now if Mr. Bryson wants to come visit the building and find out the efforts we have to move this community forward economically, let him get with Congressman Tanner, and I will personally meet him there.

Now, go to press with whatever u wish and don't bother me any more with all this petty political gaffing!”

There you have it direct from the Director.

1.) You must visit the Union City Industrial Park Spec Building (not Troy’s).

2.) You must go through Congressman Tanner to have any involvement with the Obion County Chamber of Commerce or the Obion County Economic and Community Development Corporation.

A TCWatcher from Obion County reports that this is not the first time the Obion County Chamber of Commerce has been used for partisan Democrat political purposes.

Twelve years ago when Tyson Foods made its decision to locate a processing plant in Obion County, Democrats and the Obion County Chamber of Commerce strategically planned a big announcement ceremony…five days before the general election.

This was timed specifically to try to assist Democrats running for office in Obion County, and especially to bolster the faltering campaign of then U.S. Senator Jim Sasser, a Democrat.

A big ceremony was conducted on the courthouse lawn, with every Democrat running for anything lined up on the stage.

It seems that only democrats running for public office have the exclusive right to use the chamber for partisan political purposes.

11 Ways to Say: "We're Not Nancy Pelosi"

www.humanevents.com/winningthefuture.php?id=16863

Newt Gingrich says, "Welcome to a special 2006 election edition of "Winning the Future."

"The fall 2006 elections are now just two months away. Although the conventional wisdom is that Republicans will have a tough time this fall, I believe that we can still win -- but not without substantial changes.

In this edition of "Winning the Future," I outline 11 values-led policies that are both morally right and that enjoy (not coincidentally) the overwhelming support of the American people. These are the values and the policies that Republicans should embrace this fall.

Here's the key:Republican victory in 2006 depends on a return to the American values that twice elected Ronald Reagan and returned the House to a Republican majority with the Contract with America.Republicans in 2006 must return to the pattern that allowed the center-right majority to win decisive elections for President Reagan in 1980 and 1984 and win with the Contract with America in 1994.President Ronald Reagan was successful because as governor, as a candidate and as President he spoke for and advocated the values of the overwhelming majority of Americans.The Contract with America succeeded because its core solutions (standing on President Reagan's shoulders) reflected deeply held American values. It is vital that Republican leaders understand these were American values not Republican values.

92% of the American people favored welfare reform.
88% of the people on welfare favored welfare reform.
83% of the American people favored a balanced budget.

On issue after issue the Contract with America represented the values of the American people. The left was defeated in 1994 because it had lost touch with the American people.

The Reagan-Contract Rule: Change Starts With the People For the last few years, Republicans in Washington have forgotten the Reagan-Contract rule that successful change starts with the American people. There is a real danger that Republicans will lose the House and the Senate this fall because they have strayed from this core principle of starting first with the concerns and values of the American people and then developing effective policies.Consultants are working overtime to convince the American people to favor Republican policies.

This is exactly backwards.What really works is what happens when Republicans identify themselves with the American people and against the values of the left-wing establishment that dominates the media, the bureaucracies and the lobbying community.

11 Ways to Say: "We're Not Nancy Pelosi"

Republicans should spend the next two months focused on 11 straightforward, morally grounded issues about which the American people have clearly defined beliefs.Some of these issues will make Republican elitists uncomfortable, but these were the same elitists who were uncomfortable with President Reagan and who scoffed at the Contract with America and rejected its bold proposals.

A Republican majority in the House that spent the next two months on these eleven issues would go a long way toward clarifying the choice between the San Francisco values of Nancy Pelosi and those of a GOP majority. This refreshing approach would reject the "incumbentitis" of relying on pork-barrel spending for reelection and return to the basic populist conservative values which gave us a majority in the first place.These 11 issues are all clear and all doable.

Make English the Official Language of Government. The House should pass a bill making English the official language of government, abolishing multilingual ballots and reaffirming that new citizens should be required to pass a test on American history in English. The Rasmussen poll reported that support for English as the official language was 85%. The Zogby poll had it at 84%. Why do Republican leaders find it so hard to side with more than four out of every five Americans? How many liberal Democrats who currently assume they are unbeatable would suddenly have a hard time explaining a series of votes against English to their constituents? Remember, at 85%, there are no anti-English congressional districts no matter what the elite media says.

Control the Borders. The House should pass a narrowly focused bill to ensure that the United States can control the border. The current Senate bill is a disaster. It is impossible to pass a "comprehensive" immigration bill in the next two months. The American people overwhelmingly want the borders controlled and every act of terrorism reminds us that having the borders uncontrolled makes us more vulnerable to attack. The House should immediately pass a border-control bill and conservative Republican senators should move every day to bring it up in the Senate. Let Democrats and elitist Republicans block controlling the border and make that a referendum test for Election Day.

Keep God in the Pledge. Congress should take two steps to preserve the right to say "one nation under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, a right which is supported by 91% of all Americans. The American people feel deeply that our Declaration of Independence is correct in saying that each of us is endowed by our Creator with inalienable rights. Beginning with the Supreme Court's 1963 decision outlawing school prayer, the courts have waged a 43-year assault on the core values of American liberty. It is time to return to a balanced Constitutional system. There is no Constitutional case for five lawyers' on the court being a floating majority for a permanent Constitutional Convention. The American people would rally to the elected branches' taking steps to rebalance the Constitution. First, the House should pass a bill suspending the recent federal district court decision in California outlawing the words "one nation under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. Second, the House should pass a law blocking the Supreme Court from reviewing the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance (a power of the Congress expressly granted in the Constitution).
Require a Voter ID Card. The American people overwhelmingly support (85% in one poll) having a voter id card so we can be sure only legal citizens are voting. Passing a bill to require this in all federal elections would be a big step toward more honest elections.

Repeal the Death Tax, for Good. The American people have consistently supported the total repeal of the death tax and the House should simply pass it once a week and attach it to various Senate bills to force the Senate to deal with it again and again. Let liberals explain why they oppose something that more than 70% of the country favors.

Restore Property Rights. The American people are deeply opposed to local politicians' being able to seize a citizen's home or business. The Supreme Court's Kelo decision on eminent domain is one of the most unpopular in recent years and is also one of the most dangerous. Anyone who knows the history of local government corruption in America knows it will not be long before some corrupt developers engage some corrupt politicians and this power is exploited at the cost of most Americans. Members of the Black Caucus have been among the most vocal in pointing out that it is poor people who will be the most victimized so rich developers and greedy politicians can make the money off their homes and businesses. The House should pass a powerful bill returning the constitutional law to the pre-Kelo rules and blocking the Supreme Court from reviewing it.

Achieve Sustainable Energy Independence. The country is eager for a straightforward new energy strategy for national security, environmental and economic reasons. The combination of $3 gasoline, watching Iran, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and Russia get more of our money, and concerns about the environment come together to require real change. The House should meet that need. Starting with Rep. Jim Nussle's (R-Iowa) bill on renewable fuels, adding to it clean nuclear power using new technologies that are safe and produce little waste, developing more clean coal solutions, investing in a conversion to a hydrogen economy, incentivizing conservation, providing tax credits so the auto industry can invest in the new technology and new manufacturing equipment needed to produce revolutionary new vehicles, creating the tax incentives to build the distribution system for biofuels, hybrids, and hydrogen, providing deeper tax incentives for radically better cars (imagine a substantial tax credit for cars exceeding 200 miles to the gallon of petroleum through a combination of E-85 or biodiesel, hybrid use of electricity and hydrogen), and a bill to create state flexibility in exploring off shore with a 50% split in revenue so state legislatures and governors would have an incentive to develop environmentally sound methods of exploration and production.

Control Spending and Balance the Budget. The House should pass new budget legislation to control spending, leading to a balanced budget in seven years (the length of time we gave ourselves in the Contract with America and which led to the first four balanced budgets since the 1920s), with special focus on programs liberals will fight to increase spending. Let the country see who is really committed to smaller government with lower taxes and who is committed to bigger government with higher taxes.

Tie Education Funding to Teacher Accountability. A major result of the No Child Left Behind legislation has been the clear revelation that a number of schools systems are crippling and destroying children. When the Detroit school system only graduates 21% of entering freshman on time, it is clear the children are being cheated. The American people strongly support reforms designed to save the children. The first step would be to insist that federal funds only go to school systems which require teacher competency and accountability. A clear choice between those who want to save the children and those who want to save the bureaucrats would mobilize the country in favor of dramatic education reform.

Defend America From the Irreconcilable Wing of Islam. Terrorism is a real threat. Congress should hold hearings on the recent terrorist activities in Canada, the U.K. and Morocco. The House should move bills that strengthen our security from terrorists with increased powers for surveillance, an overruling of the disastrous Hamdan decision and a series of other steps.
Focus on Iran and North Korea. The American people are very prepared to believe we face extraordinary threats from a nuclear North Korea and an Iranian regime actively seeking to develop nuclear weapons. Any actions in Iraq need to be recast in terms of their impact on Iran. A weak America in Iraq will be unable to stop Iran. Stopping Iran is potentially literally a matter of life and death. Congress should hold hearings on the scale of the Iranian and North Korean threat, the statements of their key leaders and the requirements for action to replace these dictatorships before they succeed in killing millions of Americans. The Santorum Iranian democracy bill should be forced out of the Senate in the context of these threats. Everything about Iraq should be debated within this larger and much more dangerous context.

These eleven steps focus on the House because Republicans have practical control of the House and can move legislation in the House in a timely manner.

The Senate is so hard to manage and the confusion in the Senate is so great that it is impossible to imagine a clear message coming from the Senate.The House of Representatives, however, has the opportunity to set the agenda for the fall and to define the issues in terms which will have overwhelming support from the American people.House Republicans have two months to change history. They can go one of two ways.

They can continue to ignore the lessons of history, and forget the fact that real change must begin with the American people, not the media or Washington elite.Or House Republicans can learn from history.

They can listen to the American people and return to the center-right populist majority which President Reagan and the Contract with America gave them. The choice is theirs -- and ours.

The Unlearned Lesson of Katrina

The Unlearned Lesson of Katrina

What the Mainstream Media Is Still Ignoring, One Year Later

by Robert Tracinski

In the press coverage of the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, we expect a fair bit of the usual throwing around of blame for political advantage, but to my surprise that has not been the main theme of the coverage (though Ted Kennedy couldn't resist a crudely partisan tirade). Instead, the dominant theme of the anniversary coverage is what is not being mentioned. Having reported the wrong story about the flooding of New Orleans one year ago, the press is trying to protect its distortion by excising from history the events that gave many Americans their greatest shock.

What shocked many of us was not the hurricane itself, nor the response of the federal government-outrage against the Bush administration was cultivated later. What shocked us first was the response of the people of New Orleans themselves: the immediate looting, the violence and rape, the collapse of the city government as demoralized local police walked off the job in the middle of an emergency, and the thousands of people wallowing in squalor while demanding that someone else come to help them. These are the facts that the mainstream media has downplayed or just plain ignored.

Ironically, it was the press itself that first brought this story to our attention, by focusing its reporting on the crime and squalor at the Superdome and the New Orleans convention center in the days after the levies failed. But the press soon began to backpedal, realizing that they had miscalculated. They showed us too much of the squalor, too much of the rampant looting and lawlessness, and too many ungrammatical ravings by foul-mouthed New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin. The American people began to lose their initial reaction of sympathy and to wonder instead why so many inhabitants of New Orleans were more eager to blame others for their plight than they were to lift a finger on their own behalf.

The media had hoped for an opposite reaction. They wanted to induce guilt, telling the rest of the nation that the wretchedness of New Orleans was somehow our fault. For example, New York Times columnist Frank Rich lectured us that the poor people of New Orleans "were left behind to suffer and die when the people of means began sprinting toward higher ground. They are the ones who are always left behind, out of sight and out of mind, and I'd be surprised-given the history of this country-if that were to change now." Didn't we understand that the story was supposed to be about America's heartless indifference to the poor?

Let's take a critical look at the events, from a year's perspective, and see what the real story was.

The left is correct on one point: the story is all about federal spending and the welfare state-but not in the way that they think. Frank Rich and company claimed that people were trapped in New Orleans because they had been abandoned for decades by a stingy government that denied them an adequate level of welfare handouts. In fact, New Orleans received a higher per-capita rate of federal welfare spending than most cities-a full 78 percent more than the national average-and the districts hardest hit by the flooding contained some of the city's largest public housing projects. The welfare state had showered its largesse on New Orleans, but with what result?

In fact, the disaster in New Orleans was caused, not by too little welfare spending, but by too much. Four decades of dependence on government left people without the resources-economic, intellectual, or moral-to plan ahead and provide for themselves in an emergency. I stated the lesson at the time:

What Hurricane Katrina exposed was the psychological consequences of the welfare state. What we consider "normal" behavior in an emergency is behavior that is normal for people who have values and take the responsibility to pursue and protect them. People with values respond to a disaster by fighting against it and doing whatever it takes to overcome the difficulties they face. They don't sit around and complain that the government hasn't taken care of them. And they don't use the chaos of a disaster as an opportunity to prey on their fellow men….

People living in piles of their own trash, while petulantly complaining that other people aren't doing enough to take care of them and then shooting at those who come to rescue them-this is not just a description of the chaos at the Superdome. It is a perfect summary of the 40-year history of the welfare state and its public housing projects.

In the week after the disaster, a New York Times reporter profiled two New Orleans families and their different reactions to Katrina. The main difference was not money; neither family was well-off. But one was from the lower middle class-people who are used to working for a living and providing for themselves-whereas the other family fully represented the welfare state mentality. The first family pooled their efforts with their extended family to drive out of New Orleans before the storm hit and stay at an inexpensive hotel farther inland. The other family didn't leave New Orleans until the flood waters reached their own home-and along the way, they blew their "last $25 dollars to buy fish and shrimp from men grilling them on the street"-with apparently nary a thought for what would happen to them after dinner.

The main difference between these two families was not money but responsibility. That is also the difference between the people in New Orleans who stockpiled necessities like food, gasoline, and bottled water before the storm hit, and those who waited until after the storm and looted whatever they needed-which apparently included televisions, jewelry, and DVDs-from the local Wal-Mart. Many of these looters, especially those who struck within hours after the storm passed, were not in any kind of desperate need. As one of them explained to a reporter, "People who have been repressed all their lives, man, it's an opportunity to get back at society."
This fellow acquired his sense of ethics from the welfare state-and from its spokesmen, like Frank Rich.

This sense of victimhood and entitlement brings us to the other mainstream media claim about Katrina: that it unmasked America's institutionalized racism and showed, as one rapper proclaimed, that "George Bush doesn't care about black people." (It could be argued, incidentally, that "rap music" is itself the most insidious form of institutionalized racism today, peddling a debased view of blacks as thugs and whores that exceeds the wildest slanders of Ku Klux Klan propaganda.) But what are the actual facts about Katrina and race? The Coast Guard and National Guard toiled relentlessly for four days to rescue thousands of people from their roofs, saving as many as 50,000 people-most of them black. And an analysis of deaths from the hurricane showed that mortality rates were slightly higher for whites than for blacks. So much for the myth of the racist hurricane.

But that doesn't mean race was not an issue. Katrina exposed the virulent racism of many blacks, who are raised on a culture of victimhood and grievance and think the rest of the nation owes them a prosperous living. On September 10, for example, Fox News Channel broadcast a live interview with a Katrina evacuee in Houston, a self-parody of the Angry Young Black Man who demanded a $20,000 debit card from FEMA and shouted at the camera: "We didn't ask to come on that bus…. It's like a slave ship. It's just like, you know, back in history, you know, they put us on a slave ship…. Just give us what the f--- we deserve."

What was he describing as a "slave ship"? The buses sent to rescue people from New Orleans-the same buses whose absence in the first days after the flood were considered evidence of nationally institutionalized racism. There is certainly prejudice involved here; this young man has prejudged whites as guilty, and he simply grabs at any rationalization that will confirm his bigotry.

Like this young man, the media has blamed Hurricane Katrina on a massive failure of government-which is also true, but again not in the way that they claim. It was not primarily a failure by the federal government, which is not supposed to be the first responder to a natural disaster. The first responders are supposed to be the state and local governments-who failed utterly.

Mayor Ray Nagin failed to devise or administer an evacuation plan-remember that famous photo of dozens of school buses that were left to be swamped by the flood waters instead of being used to evacuate flood victims? Instead, Nagin spent the entire crisis complaining about what other people weren't doing to save his city. When asked where he was during the crucial moments of the disaster, Nagin snapped back, to the world at large, "Where were you?"-as if a random resident strolling the streets of Buffalo bears more responsibility for the plight of New Orleans than the city's own mayor.

That Ray Nagin is still mayor of New Orleans, one year later, is the worst possible indictment of the city's corrupt culture. In 1979, the people of Chicago voted out their mayor because he failed to ensure the timely plowing of the streets after a heavy snowstorm. Ray Nagin presided over an unprecedented collapse in city government, and the people of New Orleans re-elected him. A large number of New Orleans voters are still stuck in the fantasy of holding everyone responsible for their lives except themselves.

William Jefferson also represents the local political culture well. He's the congressman whose home district is in central New Orleans-and he's also the congressman recently caught hiding $90,000 worth of bribe money in his freezer. Nagin and Jefferson are typical political products of the welfare state. Their job is not to protect citizens' lives and property, but to dole out vast sums in vote-buying patronage to their supporters and constituents, and occasionally to skim a little off the top for themselves.

And that brings us to the role of the federal government. The federal government's problem is not lack of spending. Over the decades, Louisiana's congressional delegation has funneled billions of dollars to a vast system of canals and levees, which failed-not because they were inadequately funded, but because they were inadequately designed and built.

And what about federal spending on the rebuilding of New Orleans? The federal government, far from ignoring the Gulf Coast, has pledged the astonishing sum of $120 billion dollars, far more than for any previous natural disaster. Tens of billions have already poured out of the federal coffers-largely to disappear into the unreformed swamp of Louisiana political corruption.
Yes, this is about a failure of government, all right. It's about the failure of big government and the welfare state and the whole philosophy behind them. It is about the vital necessity to move away from government handouts and toward personal responsibility and private initiative. Hurricane Katrina demonstrated that the moral difference between self-reliance and dependence on government is ultimately the difference between life and death.

The only institution for which the press has any praise on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina is, naturally enough, the press. They have spent much of this week congratulating themselves on what a marvelous job they did-which is the surest indication that they have completely missed the real story.