This Saturday press briefing by Lt Gen H Steven Blum speaks to the questions some of the commenters here have asked about a “paperwork delay” bringing the military law enforcement presence into NO. Read the whole thing, but for the purposes of this post I’ll excerpt a relevant portion of the Q & A:
GEN BLUM: […] Martial law has not been declared anywhere in the United States of America. That keeps continually being erroneously reported. An emergency condition exists in parts of the states and there are curfews that are being enforced by the existing civilian law enforcement agencies. The Army National Guard, having police powers given to them or provided to them by the governors of Louisiana and Mississippi, are augmenting, expanding, giving manpower and extra capabilities to these existing police forces. They’re actually acting almost as a deputy would. They’re deputized, essentially, by the governors of the states to use their state militias for this purpose.
There are separate agreements, because the EMAC compact does not allow law enforcement support within the states. So there is a separate agreement between the governor of Mississippi and the states that sent their military policemen down there or their National Guard down there to do, for the purpose of military police work or law enforcement. These are legally binding, legally sufficient agreements that must be in place before we put National Guard military police law enforcement officers in that role out of their home state.
Q: Is that why it wasn’t done earlier? They didn’t have those agreements in place?
GEN. BLUM: It was not foreseen. When they put the original EMAC together it was really for disaster response. Law enforcement was not envisioned. So it has to be handled as a separate process. The governors may get together and modify their EMAC in the future so that it is all-inclusive, but this fills that gap and it makes the activity of the National Guard in this regard totally legally sufficient and supportable.
Q: Does that explain why it took several days to get to this point?
GEN. BLUM: No, there was no delay. The fortunate thing is with modern technology they faxed the agreement back and forth, the two governors signed it. It was a matter of moments. That was not the delay.
The delay was in, if you want to call it a delay. I really don’t call it a delay, I’ll be honest about that. When we first went in there law enforcement was not the highest priority, saving lives was. You have to remember how this thing started. Before the hurricane hit there were 5,000 National Guardsmen in Mississippi and 5,000 National Guardsmen—excuse me. Let me correct the record. There were 2,500 National Guardsmen in Mississippi and almost 4,000 National Guardsmen in Louisiana that were sheltered and taken out of the affected area so as soon as the storm passed they could immediately go into the area and start their search and lifesaving work, and stand up their command and control apparatus, and start standing up the vital functions that would be required such as providing food, water, shelter and security for the people of the town. So it was phased in. There was no delay.
The real issue, particularly in New Orleans, is that no one anticipated the disintegration or the erosion of the civilian police force in New Orleans. Once that assessment was made, that the normal 1500 man police force in New Orleans was substantially degraded, which contributed obviously to less police presence and less police capability, then the requirement became obvious and that’s when we started flowing military police into the theater.
Two days ago we flowed 1400 military policemen in. Yesterday, 1400 more. Today 1400 more. Today there are 7,000 citizen soldiers—Army National Guard, badge-carrying military policemen and other soldiers trained in support to civil law enforcement—that are on the streets, available to the mayor, provided by the governor to the mayor to assist the New Orleans police department.
I am absolutely confident that the security situation as it has improved in the last 24 hours will improve two-fold in the next 24 hours, and soon it won’t be an issue at all […]
Q: General, you mentioned a disintegration of the New Orleans Police Department. Do you know how many officers are still on duty?
GEN. BLUM: I would rather not say. I think you’d be better to refer that question to the mayor of New Orleans. I have my own estimate. I would say they are significantly degraded and they have less than one-third of their original capability.
Q: So is it fair to say it is the National Guard that’s keeping law and order in New Orleans?
GEN. BLUM: No. As long as there’s one uniformed police officer in the city of New Orleans, we will send as many National Guard soldiers to augment, support and work in support of that lone law enforcement officer as necessary. So if hypothetically there’s only one left, who’s in charge? It’s still that lone police officer supported by the National Guard in their role as military support to law enforcement.
We are not in the lead. We have no need nor intention of imposing martial law or having the military police the United States of America.
(h/t Maggie Katzen; see also, Van der Leun)
That leaves me with a question. Should martial law have been imposed? Forgive me if the answer is obvious.
Look at the end of the interview, Jeff. Only one-third of New Orleans police still on duty.
Outrageous. President Bush is the one who can’t lead? Yeah, right.
I bolded that part, Robin.
I know but his reference is to “capacity”, he makes it explicit at the end:
Q: And you estimate there’s about a third of the New Orleans Police Department left. Do you remember about how many are in the New Orleans Police Department?
GEN. BLUM: On a normal day they should have 1,500 paid officers in New Orleans, give or take. Some people have said it’s 1,650. It’s in the rough order of 1,500-man police force, and I think the mayor told me they’re down to less than 500.
Roboshep would’ve said it better. Okay, I kid Shepherd Smith, but honesty compels me to report, as wretched as he was, and he was muy, mondo, profundo wretched, he was still ten times better than anything CNN had to offer. On a more serious note, it seems from the General’s description that the primary caregivers here should be the locals, with the NG and the Feds playing back up. And apparently it has worked that way in Ala. and Miss.
Let me rephrase…would if have been beneficial to impose martial law (in hindsight)?
General, you mentioned a disintegration of the New Orleans Police Department. Do you know how many officers are still on duty?
They messed the transcript up. I understand the reporter really asked:
General, you mentioned a disintegration of the New Orleans Police Department. Are you prepared to take a punch from Senator Landrieu?
General, you mentioned a disintegration of the New Orleans Police Department. Are you prepared to take a punch from Senator Landrieu?
I would pay cash money to see that.
After reading this briefing I believe that following the NO mayor’s advice during his obscenity-laden radio interview and sending a bunch of buses to New Orleans would only have resulted in a bunch of dead bus drivers.
I have been debating that same question with myself, as I’m sure the Bush Administration has too. Would it have saved lives? I think so. I believe it would have been political suicide. Bush would have been seen as usurping the powers of the Governor.
The cry from the left would have been DICTATOR!!
RLS, Bush will be called a dictator – probably within just a day or two when people realize that there is no intention of pushing relief supplies into New Orleans itself but instead the Feds will work to force the rest of the diehards out while the city is drained.
This action will save lives net, but will be boldly condemned by the same fatuous liars.
Robin,
I don’t know about that. I think everyone realizes now that NO cannot support life. Those sectors of the metropolitan area that are dry and basically intact will stay. Power will be restored to them.
My questions for the aftermath are these:
1. Where is the dumpster that is big enough to hold NO?
2. Where are all the people who do have homes going to work?
There are a lot of middle class people (white collar) that suddenly have no jobs.
You are being rational. The actual decision will be recast as inhuman, heartless and dictatorial.
rls, it’s interesting you should mention jobs. i’ve heard radio ads and seen notices in the paper here (dallas) from large companies giving info on how their employess from the disaster areas can reach them. i’m sure not all jobs or companies can be moved, but many, many companies are making an effort. and there are also job fairs being set up here for local co’s that are hiring.
no kidding, did you see meet the press today? you’d think that nobody in the government had lifted a finger to try and help.
Perhaps you are correct. One week ago, I would have said you are wrong. Of course, one week ago I would have never thought that a tragedy such as this would have been exploited for political gain.
I certainly did. I sent three e-mails to the reader rep at the Kansas City Star regarding the news coverage. I’ll probably get one correction on A-2 in the lower left corner.
I can say that he does listen and he does have a voice on the Editorial Board. He has made a significant difference a couple of times.
Discovery channel is currently rerunning a program on the Mississippi levees.
Yeah, I wrote a couple of days ago to Powerline suggesting that one reason for the relative ‘slowness’ of the federal response might be that they were suffering under the misapprehension that the local authorities had some kind of control over the situation–an idea which certainly seems reasonable to me. For the NO Police Department to have collapsed like a wet sack is almost incomprehensible.
And from the NYT article this morning, it appears they were poorly paid, poorly equipped and shit out of morale…
Well, sure, Ahem. But no disaster response plan to date has ever contemplated having to outright replace a major city’s own police and fire forces.
Saw four NOPD officers today who stayed until the last person was evacuated from the convention center and dome. They looked exhausted and strung out. They looked like they needed to sleep for 2 weeks. One said the men were the problem. “There were alot of cowardly men” is how one officer put it. Even with the collapse of the police force, it is important to recognize that some stayed and tried their very best to keep things as orderly as humanly possible.
Indeed, Stormy. It doesn’t surprise me that there are good officers on the New Orleans PD. I was only surprised that they constituted but 33%. I knew NOPD was bad, but I would never have guessed even that bad as cynical as I am.
Even at full strength, the NOPD was outmanned. Here’s a little comparison:
Chicago: Population: 3,000,000; Police: 12,000; Ratio: 1:250
Detroit: Population: 1,000,000; Police: 4,000; Ratio: 1:250
New York: Population: 7,100,000; Police: 30,000: Ratio: 1:237
Philadelphia: Population: 1,500,000; Police: 7,000; Ratio: 1:214
New Orleans: Population: 500,000; Police: 1,500: Ratio: 1:333.
What happened was, for all intents and purposes, an urban riot in a humongous, fetid bathtub.
Jeff:
Let me try to offer some analysis of the situation in NO. (Sorry if this a little off the main thrust of your thread.)
There are two components to the story, emergency preparedness, and disaster recovery.
The NO & LA levee and canal systems are a result of three decades of planning, engineering, and construction, and are pretty much a continuous work in progress. They are designed to withstand the effects of a Category 3 hurricane.
An emergency preparedness plan should be designed to deal with the contingencies associated with a Cat-4/5 hurricane, where storm conditions would overwhelm the flood protection systems. Such a preparedness plan would include the identification of the “at risk populations†of the elderly, infirm, and immobile that will require special assistance and/or transportation. At risk populations include those citizens without adequate resources that will require public transportation to public shelters.
Given a forecast of a Cat-4/5 storm, evacuation is necessary, rather than an option. The reason for the evacuation, now obvious to all, is the public health catastrophe that follows in the wake of the natural disaster. Aside from the infrastructure damage due to flooding, airborne debris in 74+ mph winds can be deadly. Resulting damage to infrastructure will limit the abilityâ€â€for myriad reasonsâ€â€of local public safety (police, fire, ambulance) emergency services from performing their regular duties.
Irrespective of the breech of the levee(s), thousands of square miles of infrastructure (utilities and bridges) and roofs/housing have been destroyed by the hurricane resulting in the loss of food (electricity, refrigeration), sanitary conditions (electricity, pumping stations), and housing for millions of people in the Gulf coast region. The affected populations will suffer this hardship for as long as the recovery takesâ€â€months, not weeks.
That tens of thousands of able bodied people were allowed to remain behind in area that would suffer severe damage and flooding resulted in a life hazard of unacceptable proportions. (A Cat-4/5 hurricane with Cat-3 protections equals flooding. This is not rocket science, nor does it require the “imagination†many people seem to lose in these tragedies.) The reason it is unacceptable is that the utility/infrastructure/housing damage caused by such storms (and lengthy recovery associated therewith) are not imponderables. Allowing people to remain behind turned what should have been an evacuation and recovery, into an emergency rescue operation.
The result is a rescue operation that preempts disaster recovery efforts, and the related priorities of manpower and materiel. Helicopters, water-borne craft and their manpower must be diverted to rescue operations from supplying food, water, and other vital supplies to the displaced and homeless.
Emergency preparedness officials must plan for the worst, and not hope for the bestâ€â€hope is not a plan.
Lots of people, besides the mayor and governor, involved in emergency preparedness planning in NO and LAâ€â€police chiefs, fire chiefs, state national guard adjutant-general, etc.â€â€have plenty to be embarrassed regarding their inability to implement their emergency response plan. Not many of us have the luxury to explain that the reason their job didn’t get done is because the president failed to call in the Armyâ€â€to do the job for you.
The failure to evacuate is the cause of the human catastrophe. The severity of the storm will dictate the severity of the damage–the worse the storm, the more inaccessible the region will be, compounding the problem of recovery and rescue. Since we cannot control the path of a hurricane, we must get people out of its path. This should not be difficult to understand, though apparently it is, for some.
My two cents, even if it’s not worth it.
TW:money
“Where is the dumpster that is big enough to hold NO?”
That would be the Gulf of Mexico.
New Orleans was the most corrupt major city in the US. That many on the NOPD were corrupt was also no surprise. What was surprising was the extent of the corruption. Unfortunately it took a major tragedy to expose it.
Now that the facts are finally coming out. The moonbats will put it on simmer until the next opportunity arises.
As for the rest of us, let’s do all we can to try to help in whatever way we can. I live very far away, so my main effort will be to donate to a relief fund, my wife has already.
One of my wife’s close friends, who’s an RN is volunteering to go there to help. She works for the state and they are willing to pay transportation and lodging for their employees in needed occupations that are willing to go there and volunteer.
Our hearts go out to the survivors. I can’t imagine their loss. Nor can I imagine the horror of being trapped in a hell hole like the Superdome or the Convention Center.
Aside from helping, maybe one lesson everyone can take away from this is to be perpared to survive on your own for two weeks or more. We live in an earthquake prone area and there is no warning. We’ve been reviewing our emergency equipment and food and water situation.
I don’t know that anyone could have been prepared for what happened in NO, given it’s unique geography. furthermore, the fact that it not only can, but will happen again, I think a serious decision needs to be made about rebuilding it. At least on the size that existed before the hurricane.
It’s nice to see the facts dribbling out about the local “government” and it’s role in this catasrophe. But who wants to bet that very little of this stuff will find it’s way into the MSM?
The scariest thing about the left is that they don’t care what informed and rational people think. They are playing strictly to the illiterate and the ignorant – and to our children. The outrage of a paper like The New York Times giving a forum to hatemongers such as Krugman and Dowd is simply beyond words. I must be pretty old, because when I was growing up, these people wouldn’t have been let NEAR a newsroom, much less a typewriter.
AND HOWARD F’ING DEAN (another notable eighth grader) IS THE HEAD OF THE DNC!!! It scares the crap out of me that John Kerry and this herd of orcs came within 3 million votes (not a lot, in context) of taking over this country. I mean, I can’t even look at Kerry (or Al Gore, for that matter) without feeling embarrassed for him. They call Bush “Hitler”, yet the only fascists I see on the horizon are comfortably ensconced in the leadership of the Democratic party. This is truly some scary s**t…
I’m usually not a big fan of Presidential Commissions, or their independent counterparts, but one should definitely be put together for this disaster; and President Bush is the one who should propose it.
There’s no downside for him or anyone else interested in what appeared to be a slow response. There are a lot of questions to be answered, such as why those buses went unused when it was known that many didn’t have the means to leave on their own. Why did it take so long to get the interstates going one direction—out of New Orleans.
Why are their police officers paid so little and why are there so few of them? It seems the state could augment their numbers and increase their pay if it had a mind to.
What about the talk about underfunding levees? Is it true? Would it have mattered?
Why is it so difficult to get the feds quickly involved? Could they have used active duty troops in law enforcement? Is it possible to suspend posse comitatus for a short time to allow the active duty troops to participate? They can be deployed much faster than the Guard and they will presumably come from elsewhere in the country and won’t have to worry about their family’s safety before being able to go on the job.
There are a million questions to answer and a commission would presumably come up with facts that are unadorned with bullshit. My guess is that it’d shut Mayor Nagin up in short order, as well. He seems intent on blaming everyone but himself.
Robert asks all the right questions.
Screw blaming people, what did we learn?
A corrupt police force will bolt when the shit hits the fan.
Ignoring the reality of a hurricane flooding downtown NO was irresponsible. Federal, State, Local, whatever. All three falied. They knew this was a possibility, and no one took the necessary steps to mitigate the effects. No one. Yes, Bush could have appropriated more federal money to help prevent the effects of a 17th street levee break. But the difference between $20 million and $100 million was irrelevant. There wasn’t any effort to protect these weaknesses, going back 40+ years.
The question now should be what have we learned?
Sorry, Tman, but I’m gonna disagree here. I’m hardly a Bush apologist (though some seem intent on making me so), but neither am I going to take what I consider to be the easy way out—the “cycle of violence” / “there’s plenty of blame to go around” approach—until I’m convinced it’s warranted.
And so far, I don’t see it that way.
I, too, want to understand what happened and fix the problem. And the problem, as I see it, is that for years, everybody’s been betting, implicitly, against a Cat4/5 hurricane ever hitting NO directly, the storm surge overshooting the levees, and having the levees fail on the back end.
Beyond that, the problems seem concentrated on the local level—or, if you prefer, on the way the disaster plans are organized to rely on the first and second responders being local; leaving Bush to have to make a decision about whether to federalize Guard troops is rock/hardplace territory. And as a Repub / nominal conservative President, he is ideologically compelled to leave control to the Governor until such time as it became apparent that the Governor was acting incompetently.
The FEMA response was appropriate. So was the President’s deference to the Governor. The relief effort, given the scope of the disaster, has been amazing.
So no, I’m not going to concede, just for the sake of showing my equanimity, that there’s plenty of blame to be evenly distributed.
That, to me, is the PC response. I want to know precisely went wrong and fix only that.
I’m not sure federalizing the NG was a rock/hard place situation. Doing it (without consent from the LA legislature) would have been completely illegal and a rightfully impeachable offense. But what would it have solved, anyway? If he’d done it 8/26, lives may well have been saved, but is there really any reason to beleive that, by the time it would have even occurred to him to do it, things would have been better if he had? Once the Governor called in the rest of her state’s NG, and arranged for other NGmen from other states, how would the President’s signing their orders have been better?
This isn’t to say the President couldn’t have done more, or that what he did was perfect or even good. It’s just that we don’t know what his mistakes were, yet. All the complaints about him are either along the lines of, “Why didn’t he act (no definition of what action he should have taken but didn’t, or shouldn’t have taken but did) sooner?”, or garbage about golfing and playing the guitar.
Oh, I guess his speech was pretty crummy. So there’s one failure we know about.
Next on the aganda? New Orleans and Mississippi are fermenting into a brand new crisis. Do they have enough bags and refrigerated trucks to handle the bodies? What’s the CDC doing about disease control? Mosquito control? Are they assuming that the local authorities in the affected areas have it under control? Because if we’ve learned anything it is that the local authorities do not have an adequate plan.
tw: wife. Nag nag nag.
I sure am glad to read that the military understand the value and reasons WHY using a federalized military to control US citizens is a VERY bad idea.
What botheres me are those Americans who are encouraging such action to take place. Do they not understand how dangerous such an action is to the maintaining State sovereignty?
Send them back to Civics 101 ASAP.
What I detest most about Leftist politics is the active intent to raise Stalin from the wasteland of dead ideas and place in power uber alles.
It is sad to say but probably over 90% of the ones who chose to stay in N.O. were bottom feeders who more than likely have never worked a day in their life.They are been conditioned through the years to expect the government to provide for every need they have.They are encouraged to work the system by having as many kids as they can because every kid will bring a raise in monthly benefits and this scenario has been going on for the last 40 years.
The ones who could have left should have left making it far less of a challenge to rescue the ones who truly could not leave.In effect the people themselves along with an incompetent elected mayor have brought about the problems that they have been facing.It is simply the nature of the welfare system for those recipients to sit and wait for someone else to do what they should have done themselves.THEY SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN THE HELL OUT OF NEW ORLEANS.
I dont want to hear that they could not get out or that they had no place to go,hell they sure as hell were able to destroy the Superdome and the Convention Center along with the rest of the city.Loot everything in sight,rape and murder their own people.Hell yes if they were able to do all of this in the aftermath then they sure as hell could have gotten out when the getting out was good.
But no they only say they had nowhere to go which is what they have now and that is nowhere to go.Now they will sit in shelters and bitch and complain about how no one is doing this or no one is doing that and it will never dawn on any of them that perhaps the only place they need to look for help is in a mirror.
In the coming days and weeks they will be housed and fed and provided for by the very people who they have critcized for not getting them out sooner.While they are receiving all of this help pro bono they will ask where their monthly check and other freebies are since they are entitled to all of the freebies that make up their way of life.They will be on TV screens on the news saying “I have not gotten MY check,why are they not giving us our checks” as if they have earned a damn check but somehow feel entitled to a check to go along with the freebies they are now receiving.
A horrible scene is unfolding in shelters everywhere where grown able bodied men are lounging around on cots playing cards while volunteers are moving supplies in and distributing them to these worthless men who will not even help themselves.These same men should be forced to be the first ones to go back to N.O. nad start the clean up,but they wont be forced to do that as it has been reported that $62 million has been allocated to hire the refugees to go back in and clean up their own city.WHAT pay them to clean up their own city while they continue to already be provided for????BULLSHIT no work,no eat and if they dont want to work for the keep they are now receiving let them starve…
That’s the best impersonation of a Republican I’ve ever read. Really captures the “Strict Father” frame. Unless you’re serious, in which case it’s pretty disgusting.
Sorry Mike, Ken had better arguments in the thread down the page. And Ken’s arguments were pig doots. Pig doots, by the way, is a Dave Barry expression.
I’m more concerned that ‘Strict Father’ Stalinist will just execute them all or leave them to waste until somebody else shows up to save them (oh wait, the Stalinists already did the latter)
More brilliance from Rep. Diane Watson, D-Calif. and the Congressional Black Caucus:
“‘Refugee’ calls up to mind people that come from different lands and have to be taken care of. These are American citizens,” Watson said.
Added Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md.: “They are not refugees. I hate that word.”
It was not noted how many times African-American was used in the press conference.
Bokonon42,
I am serious as serious can be as I am only stating the facts as they are.No sugarcoating here only the facts.
Corvan,
I am not trying to out argue or outpoint anyone as the truth must be told and reality must be faced.For far too long the truth has been ignored like a big elephant in the room.
Bokon–
I’m sure Bill Clinton would have given a better speech. Though Clinton no doubt would have “felt everyone’s pain,” I suspect Bush accomplished far more with less fanfare than his predecessor would have. Maybe Bush’s eternal failing is not knowing how to blow his own horn. Ironic, given all the crap spewed by lefties about him wanting to be a modern-day Caesar.
I’m sorry Mike R, I don’t agree with a word you’ve said, and never will.
Corvan,
I dont care who’s words you agree.The one thing you cant disagree is the facts.
Perhaps you and others like should take your heads out of the sand and have a look around at the realities of just how severely America is being fleeced by the freeloaders of our society.
Again,no one is asking you to agree with anyone.But please do move out of the forest if you cant see the forest because of the trees.
While I think Mike R is guilty of over-generalizing, it is obvious that we have created a culture of dependency in many of our cities. If your basic needs have always been provided for in times of prosperity, how would you learn to provide for yourself in times of strife?
tw: free, as in nothing left to lose
B Moe,
Perhaps the media is over generalizing but I am not.The media has to interview anyone who has been willing to accept the blame for being stranded by not heeding the warning.All they have said is what took so long for help to arrive.
Common sense has to prevail and self accountability must be taken for their very own lives and not shuffled off to anyone other than themselves.
It is high time for the freebies to end for the able bodied people who receive them,thus enabling the elderly and those who cant fend for themselves to be properly cared for.
Fellas, ignoring dying people in times of emergency, when you have the power to save them, is just too reprehensible for words. You are arguing for the commission of a moral travesty. Maybe the both of you should take a breath and reconsider.
Mike R.,
Sadly, what you have said about the probable outcome of all this is correct.
I think people bristle at this because the institutionalized political correctness that has been drilled into our heads in this country makes us uncomfortable pointing our finger at the poor, and in this case, black. But you can not agrue that those that make a life of feeding of the government tit develop a sense of entitlement, and as a result most probably won’t find it within themselves to rise to the occasion when the chips are down.
I don’t know where all the blame will fall. I just know what my eyes saw. Today, I asked to be shown how to properly discharge a firearm. As soon as the firing range is open, I’m there.
I don’t want citizens firing on me any more than I want U.S. soldiers firing on me. (I can likely trust the U.S. soldiers not to fire on me.) But I have learned that I may need to defend myself for up to four days before the Cavalry arrives.
Suck it up and strive for self-reliance. The government is never the answer for personal safety. And pick your homestead carefully, noting the dangers as well as the advantages. It’s not so different since our pioneer days.
Not that I remember them personally…
Whoa down there, I am not calling for ignoring anybody. I am saying we need to take a look at what has created this mess and try to fix it.
“If your basic needs have always been provided for in times of prosperity, how would you learn to provide for yourself in times of strife?”
I don’t want to ignore anyone, but rather create a system where they have to think, work, and learn how to take care of themselves.
And Mike R labelling everyone who stayed as rapists and looters is an over-generalization. There were alot of people who stayed because they didn’t think it was going to be that bad. You haven’t heard much about it because it is not compelling entertainmen…, I mean news.
Mike is right. The able-bodied adults sitting around in shelters bored and whining- it is disgusting. New Orleans can use all the help it can get.
The able-bodied people left in NO fall into 2 rough categories: those too poor to get out, and those too stupid. Those too poor, as Mike pointed out, have been on the government dole, so they can’t even fold their arms and say, “I don’t owe anyone anything,” even as volunteers from across the country who really don’t owe anything but are inspired by sheer generosity, are leaving their safe homes and jobs to lend a hand.
I won’t go as far as to say they shouldn’t get any additional tax money for disaster assistance, but I wish the able-bodied could be commandeered into helping, and those who refuse be likewise denied help from those who have to prioritize their handouts.
P.S. I am a Dave Barry fan too, and I am pretty sure where he would see pig doots.
Hey, wanna hear something fun? Mayor Nagin, he who ignored his city’s own evacuation plan, whose police force crumbled, who has been screeching about how it’s all the Feds fault … so whatcha gonna do now, Mayor Nagin?
I’m sending my cops and their families to Las Vegas!
tw:Rudy. as in did Rudy do this within a week of 9/11?
Just…can’t…wrap…mind…around…it…
Nagin should be publically executed. Really.
They should change the name of the police department to the New Orleans Republican Guard.
We can all stop worrying about this; Sean Penn has the situation under control:
<a href=”http://blog.mu.nu/cgi/splorp.cgi?entry_id=116083″ target=”_blank”>
Jeff: what am I doing wrong with your “http” clicky-button?
Everything that was foretold happened. Almost exactly. Down to specific evacuation problems, the impact on the infrastructure, the traffic gridlock figures and the death toll (anticipated 20,000).
New Orleans’ fundamental hurricane preparedness strategy was wrong. The only way to survive a Category 5 is to prepare for one.
I think we learn what we already know quite well: humanity tends not to act until it’s too late. I suppose we should just admit we’re insane, doing the same thing again and again but expecting different results. Cut to the chase.
Oh, Quiggs. I think you’re not closing the tag. You have to add </a> yourself.
The collar President Bush wears around his neck is the perception that he is aloof and not on top of the situation.
Anyone who has observed his management style over the years should recognize that collar for what it is – a perception by his detractors.
Bush knows, as any good manager knows, that he doesn’t have the expertise to micromanage situations such as this. He believes, rightfully or wrongly, that he has capable people who have the expertise to get the job done. He delegates to them the responsibility and authority. His job is to remove any barriers in their way and he does it superbly.
I give him a lot more credit than everyone else does for smarts and management. He undoubtedly knows the strengths and weaknesses of his people. He would no more put someone in a position they couldn’t handle than he would assign a General Officer to latrine duty.
His style is to hire good people, give them the tools and then get the hell out of the way. He receives no credit for that style.
Point one: Bush doesn’t need the permission or request of the Louisiana legislature to call the National Guard into federal service. This is not the law and doesn’t make sense on its face, given the well settled relationship here between the state militias and the federal government.
Jeff: I’m trying to understand your argument. Are you saying that, <i>as a matter of principle<i>, that Bush and the Administration were constrained from acting in the Gulf Coast? That’s a hell of an argument.
Jeff, FEMA’s response was not appropriate, whatever that means. We know George Bush has pronounced himself satisfied with Brownie’s performance. No one else appears to be, as the the usual chorus of GOP pols is, for the most part, conspiculously silent.
I completely agree with you that the performance of all levels of government must be investigated. this was one massive failure. The federal response has been amazing, except not te way you mean it.
Kenny
Nagin is so satisfied with the reponse he’s sending his cops and their families to Vegas or Atlantic City for an all expense-paid 5 day vacation …
Heck, the feds have arrived let THEM do all the clean up…of course while still under CITY control…but now is time to Not Worry, Be Happy…
I’m assuming you mistyped. The Governor of LA is the only authority that can call in the NG. The President may call the NG to active duty and make them a part of the Active Duty Military, that is correct. But he has no legal authority to mobilize the NG. I beleve it is Congress that must declare Martial Law.
Ken you need to read the full text of the General’s Press Briefing. He outlines the whole sordid mess.
If you do not think that the Feds (FEMA & HS) did their jobs, please point out where exactly you think they failed. Having an opinion and asserting it as fact gets you no points. If there is some specific part of the response you disagree with, please tell us.
Darlene:
I have no idea what you are talking about. Any cop who has been on duty continuously for over a week in this situation probably does merit some time off, don’t you agree? That, and the fact that the better part of both the NO PD and FD are now homeless is probably a bit of a stressor as well. No doubt you could give them a little lecture on self reliance to cheer them up.
Other than that, I see your style of argument appears to be stringing along non sequiturs. Pretty amusing.
Kenny
Tell me where Rudy sent cops and their families to Vegas in the week following 9/11, paid for by the city..then we’ll talk. Nagin is more than a boob, his a crooked boob doing it broad daylight. Sure, rotate out your guys for a breather, but fly ‘em to Vegas?? COME ON.
This is the guy that was SUPPOSED to be in charge of the evacuation plans of the city…sez so right in their own plans … and until you changed your tact to grudgingly acknowlege Nagin just might, maybe, a little bit, be at fault here you just continued to pound the Bush played golf while people suffered mendacious meme.
And Nagin had the unmitigated chutzpah to try and get FEMA to pay for the gambling junkets!
Ken, if you disagree with the legal interpretations, take it up with Lousiana Governor Blanco as she has controlled the deployment of National Guard in her state explicitly.
But whatever you do, stop pulling made-up law out of your ass.
Sorry, Ken you didn’t agitate for a full investigation of all levels of government last night. As a matter of fact, you said Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin had done everything they needed to do. Today, you’ve changed your story again. If you’re mad a FEMA, you’re not aone. But so far the people I see that are angriest with FEMA all seem to be saying that if FEMA had pushed the locals out of the way and waved a magic wand all would magically be better. Specifically, what should have been where that isn’t. Who should have done what that didn’t?
Ken, a police force already down to one third of its proper strenght due to desertion is already on “vacation”. Permanent vacation. Sending a bunch of the remaining third on vacation 7 days into a 12 month or more disaster is essentially a mass resignation.
That resignation should be accepted. Vacation pay should be paid out and then the badges, guns and uniforms should be collected and burned.
And then a new PD should be formed without any history or holdover from the previous PD.
Otherwise, NO is doomed to do this all over again.
Corvan:
I have never said that Blanco and Nagin did everything they needed to do. I have rejected, as complete nonsense, the line being spun by the degenerate Rove that the exclusive blame lays at the feet of the governor and the mayor. It’s not the same thing no matter how much you want it to be. Blanco and Nagin have well paid flacks to this for them. I’ll leave that to them.
I don’t believe in magic wands. What I am saying is that the federal government had and has a huge role in a natural disaster of this scale and they clearly failed to prepare adequately, or respond energetically. And Bush and company are lying about it all now in a craven effort to avoid THEIR responsibilities.
Strange, I would have thought the people responsible for New Orleans would have to be dragged away from fixing it kicking and screaming. Instead, they are going to get an expenses paid trip to Las Vegas to reconnect with their families, because we all know that is what Las Vegas is all about. Hey, with New Orleans gone, Las Vegas now takes over as Sin City. Maybe that’s why it was picked, so the officers could feel a little more comforatble as they reconnect with their families.
But hey, these men and woman, at least the ones still on the job, do need some relief and care, but taking off to Las Vegas isn’t really what comes to mind is it? By al means, set up duty rotations, assign some staff to take care of their families, and weed out the bad elements. But if they are so goddamn anxious to abandon their city, please explain to me again why tax money should be used to rebuild it.
Mayor Nagins approach to Katrina’s aftermath now seems to be the classic Duck and Cover—your asses, that is.
Who beside President Bush and Governor Barbour are showing the most basic traits of leadership – taking responsibility and acting, which includes not seeking to assign blame to others. Time spent assigning blame, seeking scapegoats and covering your ass is time not spent on the problem at hand.
Turing word: making, as in they should be making the best of a bad situation, insetad of running away from it and looking to blame everyone except the person in the mirror.
Ken
Confess now…you were the role model for the lawyer that sues Mr. Incredible for saving the life of a suicide, right?
Robin:
Your spitball is wide and outside. Governor Blanco controls the Guard until the President federalizes them. That is the law, and it is not made up.
I don’t remember President Kennedy asking the Alabama Legislature’s permission to federalize the Guard when Governor Wallace attempted to use them in his theatrical attempt to block the school house door. Kennedy took them over, and sent them back to barracks.
I don’t remember President Eisenhower being worried about legal nicities when he sent the Army into Little Rock.
Uhm, Ken…
I think what is being pointed out is the absurdity of police, after a week of doing their job (yes, stressful),are being given a free trip to Vegas, courtesy of the Mayor of N.O. He at first tried to get FEMA to pay for the trip. Now he says the city will pay, no matter the ‘cost’.
We had a number of folks engaged in stressful tasks who I am sure would have liked a vacation to Vegas, and have some still so engaged.
They are in Iraq, and Afghanistan right now.
I’m sure that ones that have friends and family in N.O. are quite pissed off right now.
Durand TW: arms, as in up in.
New Orleans was the most corrupt major city in the US.
I think the citizens of the great city of Chicago would argue that point, Tim. The State of Illinois would probably give Looseyanna a good run for “Most Corrupt State in the Nation”, for that matter…
I blame the French. And inertia. If you wanted to exploit the natural resources of North America in the days before air travel and inter-state highways you might want to control the Mississippi River. And you wouldn’t care that the best way to do that would involve building your colonial capitol in a below sea-level swamp in hurricane country. It’s worth it because the rewards outweigh the negatives. Once the city is built inertia takes over. So it stays, even though its original purpose is gone and the then applicable cost-benefit analysis, er, no longer holds water. In another analysis the Army Corps of Engineers decades ago figured a 0.5% chance (1 in 200) that the city would be struck by a Cat4/5 storm. So they built for Cat3. Well Katrina must have been #201. Now 1.5 million have been evacuated. But they are not all from New Orleans (pop. 500,000). For me, any talk of rebuilding is very foolish inertia. Levees for a Cat5 are stupidly expensive for a city of 500,000. Especially when so many of the evacuees are already saying they don’t intend (sensibly) to come back. The city is destroyed. Leave it that way. But what about Mardi Gras? The spirit of Mardi Gras was not geography. It was the spirit of the people of NO which created and sustained MG. Those people will be living in Texas and ferchrisake Utah after Katrina. Most will find new lives in their new places and stay there. I think it’s time to let a swamp be a swamp. Did the Mayor and NO PD let the city down? Yup. Not only in that they didn’t get people out soon enough. They also stepped back while people raped and murdered. Now they get a free trip to Vegas? And how many hundreds of billions do you want to spend to give them back a brand spankin’ new city? These guys? How ‘bout not a freakin’ dime? The unfortunate citizens of NO deserve every bit of help they are getting from the rest of the country. And the best help we can give them is a fresh start in a different place. And the real estate? Hey, I believe in the wisdom of the marketplace. If there’s value there the marketplace will cultivate it. Assuming EPA doesn’t shut things down based on Wetlands Preservation. Heh.
Uh Ken?
Maybe because in both those instances the state government was DEFYING FEDERAL LAW?
What FEDERAL LAW did Nagin and the Gov defy with their incompetence in following their own STATE/CITY evacuation plans?
(jaysus… you claim you passed <i>the bar<i>? Which one? Murphy’s or O’Flannigan’s?)
Ken, anyone on can go read your posts from last night. You can’t change them just by wishing it were so. And the questions remain. What wasn’t where it was supposed to be? What wasn’t done that should have been? The commanders in the field all say they got there as quickly as they could. The NO police department admits 2/3 of its force quit on the job. Everyone agrees that the break down in law enforcement made the relief effort that much more difficult. There is no doubt Governor Blanco refused to let the entire operation be Federalized. There is no doubt that pushing her out of the way would have, in fact, been a Federal over throw of a State Government. Please stop slinging insults, just for a moment and tell me what should have been done and when and by who.
Ken, you’ve just demonstrated your utter incompetence rather well. Your previous analogy to a war with your ludicrous Pearl Harbor prattle and now your completely irrelevant reference to the use of Federal troops to enforce Federal law are silly.
In both legal and practical terms, the President cannot sweep aside the state and local governments in a natural disaster.
Your criticisms of the Bush administration have just become increasingly insane. Just nutsy. Now all you have left is whining that Bush was incompetent for not being the authoritarian dictator that you want to accuse him of being. You are literally parodying yourself, Ken.
Having grown up outside Chicago, please allow me to add that Chicago’s brand of corruption appears to be somewhat unique in that the city does actually function quite well. I’m certainly not advocating corruption and I doubt that Chicago’s special brand could be effectively duplicated, but let’s be clear, there’s corruption and then there’s corruption.
Living in St. Louis has given me a chance to see yet another example of an heavily segregated, old French Catholic Mississippi river town. Maybe there’s something special about the corruption generated in towns with these attributes that makes it irredeemable.
Ken,
Ken the examples you cited don’t fit this situation. In Alabama and In Little Rock State and local governments were in open defiance of American law. In NO, it appears that the locals were within their rights under the law. As it turns out, now we see, after the fact, that they may have been terribly, terribly incompetent. That doesn’t creat a case for their ouster before the fact.
Oh, and as far as the briefing you mentioned earlier. The one regarding the storm’s intensity and danger. What do you want to bet the locals recieved the same briefings? Listen I’m willing to keep an open mind about FEMA, but to this point it seems just as likely to me that they’ve victims of the local authorities mis-steps. Of course, the locals say not, but there is a fair amount of evidence out there that calls everything the locals have been claiming into question. Time will tell. Name calling now isn’t getting us anywhere.
Darlene:
I gave up watching cartoons about the same time I gave up Three Stooges movies, which was back when LBJ was president. So I can’t comment on the cartoon you are referencing.
Most of my clients are people who are being pushed around by the kind of people George Bush approves of. Employers are a lawless lot these days. I have one client whose former employer illegally cancelled her COBRA coverage. We’re about ready to go into federal court on that one. I have another client who was illegally fired while on FMLA leave. She had the temerity to care for her husband and donate an organ to him. I expect we’ll be suing them once she’s recovered from her donor surgery.
I also have a business client who are being prosecuted for not having workers’ comp insurance even though their insurer, the local comp behemoth, took their premiums and cancelled their insurance without telling them. I’m in court on that one tomorrow.
Oh yes. And I once stopped a widow from being forced out her house by her greedy, low rent step-children. I really enjoyed their reacation that day in court. Oh, yeah, and there was lady who was being forced out of her childhood home by her sisters and their greedy, vindictive husbands. I was about the tenth lawyer she consulted, but the first who actually listened to her. She owns the house now.
Oh, yeah, and there’s the legally blind, very deaf lady who was being forced out of her job for being legally blind and very deaf. We couldn’t save her job unfortunately, because her union gave up on her. We did get a much better severance deal for her. I did that one pro bono, even though she offered to pay.
Bill Whittle has a new essay up.
<a>href=”http://www.ejectejecteject.com/archives/000129.html” target=”_blank”</a>
I’m not defending any of the NO Police that defected, but I’d like to see some numbers showing what percentage of them were fathers, compared to those who stayed.
I do have a hard time arbitrarilly crucifying a cop who decided it was more important to be a father, and opt to get his family out of town without hearing his or her story first. Just throwing it out there.
You guys have really drank the Kool-Aid. The little Pearl Harbor skit was satire intended to illustrate the absurdity of the procedural, bullshit argument you that the White House,led by the degenerate Rove, are putting out.
You folks don’t get the joke. The degenerate Rove, the “brains” behind Bush, thinks you are a bunch of credulous boobs.
I notice you are all very silent about the fact that the White House was caught in a big fat lie attempting to smear Governor Blanco. That tells you all need to know about their mindset.
Ken,
Could you answer my questions please?
Is anybody else getting as tired of the “drinking the Kool Aid” cliche as I am? Almost as lame as the “degenerate Rove”. Sorry Ken, you can talk all the shit you want about being Saint Altruis the Litigator, but you come across as a pissed off, precocious little teenager.
Ken,
While I think its amusing the way most of the deranged left think Karl Rove and George Bush had god-like powers capable of forcing 2/3rds of NO police department to desert and the ability to mind contol the Governor and Mayor so they left the school and transit busses sitting below sea level to be destroyed by flooding, it saddens me to think you might actually be a lawyer. If so, that means the mentally ill are now arguing before judges.
Corvan–
Ken can’t answer your questions. Lefties don’t know how to do logic. They just throw tantrums and point fingers. Republicans = Party of Action; Democrats = Party of Whining.
Ah. With that statement you have just given me a reason to totally ignore anything you have to say. Not that your previous stubborn refusal to understand simple civics lessons weren’t as well, but let’s say that the ridiculous paranoia was the extra-special cherry on top.
Ken, you are only getting nuttier. Gov. Blanco has been discredited by her own statements and actions. No one else’s. You’ve not provided any factual basis for your accusations.
I just read this article from the Seattle Times over at LGF. It contains this quote, about FEMA director Mike Brown: “Brown, Mayfield said, is a dedicated public servant. ‘The question is why he couldn’t shake loose the resources that were needed,’ he said.
Even a Brown supporter is saying FEMA wasn’t on the stick. But can anyone identify specifically what resources FEMA couldn’t “shake loose.” I still haven’t seen evidence there was incompetence or lack of resourcefulness on the part of FEMA. What I have seen is that there were disaster relief teams standing by with rescue supplies stockpiled near the storm corridor before the storm even hit. What was missing, exactly?
Especially Fresh Air, since there have really been only two tasks involved in New Orleans last week. The first is accomplishing the evacuation and the second is regaining control from the gangs, thugs and looters. Both of these tasks involved resources that Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin always had under their control: the New Orleans city police and fire and the Louisiana National Guard.
Ken,
You really are a self-important twat, aren’t you?
You have proven without a doubt that what you have to say isn’t worth reading or responding to. I think by doing so we create the illusion that you are a rational person with whom a reasonable argument can be had.
In truth you are the raging lunatic on the street that we should just ignore and avoid by crossing to the other side. Seek help. Or… don’t bother. Whatever.
Uh, Robin:
It’s right there in yesterday’s Washington Post. Anonymous White House officials (Read: Rove and Bartlett), by way of attempting to shift blame to Blanco, tell bald faced lie that as of Saturday, September 3, she had yet declare the state of emergency needed to trigger various federal responses. They had to know that was false. She issued the proclamation a week earlier.
The Post, in typically sloppy manner, accept this false assertion as fact. They are forced to quickly issue a retraction and correct the record.And the Post, in typical corrupt modern day DC manner, contines to protect the anonominity of the source who misled them.
The lie is there on the record. So is the correction. It’s a fact no matter how much you wish it so.
Ken, I’ve read Blanco’s declaration and it simply doesn’t do what you claim for it. This has been consistent with your pattern of misrepresentation of the events and applicable laws.
RR–
Don’t waste any more pixels on Ken. Even his fellow loonies on the left aren’t trying to defend Blanco. He’s their sacrificial suicide poster, strapped on with a belt of exploding ignorance filled with stupidity fragments, running towards an M-1 of hardened facts.
KA-POW!
Ken,
Blanco, on August 28th, asked for <a href=”http://gov.louisiana.gov/Disaster Relief Request.pdf” target=”_blank”>130,000,000 in federal aid.</a>
I suspect that is inadequate.
And does not equate to mobilizing the Louisiana National Guard and asking for 7,000 MP’s to take over from the NO PD.
She also, on the 28th, said:
:::sigh::: yes, Ken, we all know that Bush loves to meet with Glenn and have blended puppies as a appertif before skeet shooting off the West Wing, skeet being—when they yell “Pull!”—some screaming poor black child.
Jaysus, how DO you fit that ego through the double office doors?
tw: ass. as in ‘kiss my..’
They are playing strictly to the illiterate and the ignorant – and to our children.
That’s what frightens me the most. That our Children are being indoctrinated by the leftist hatred agenda. I’m a hunter,and my children have been,for lack of a better word,hypnotised by their teachers.2 beautiful kids that have grown up and taught to hunt,fish,garden and otherwise take care of themselves NOW believe that all of the above are sadistic rituals…well,NOT the gardening,as long as I do the weeding,but do you see my point???
Wow, isn’t it uncanny how all who oppose the Word of Ken â„¢ are “drinking the kool-aid” and otherwise brainwashed thralls of Rove et al?
How… convenient.
But let’s be honest: it’s all he really has. All he can do is loudly proclaim that Bush, Rove et al are evil monsters and gleefully predict their doom… then slink away when it fails to happen. You’d think they’d get tired of it after the last five years or so.