Incompetent Blanco Refuses To Give Feds Control Over Guard

[Jelly]

excerpt from the Washington Post...

Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state's emergency operations center said Saturday.

The administration had sought control over National Guard units, normally under control of the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request, noting that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. State authorities suspected a political motive behind the request. "Quite frankly, if they'd been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals," said the source, who is an adviser and does not have the authority to speak publicly.

Blanco made two moves Saturday that protected her independence from the federal government: She created a philanthropic fund for the state's victims and hired James Lee Witt, Federal Emergency Management Agency director in the Clinton administration, to advise her on the relief effort.

Jesus lady, you've proven you can't handle this. Lead or get out of the way.

[1369]

I don't think she has to worry about giving up control, the 3 star already has...

[spurster]

The Louisiana governor has pretty much sucked.

[1369]

From my seat in the peanut gallery, she hasn't contributed much.

[Vashner]

I don't think she has to worry about giving up control, the 3 star already has...

Hum.. ok i'll agree this guy deserves a medal for what he has done. I didn't like him yelling at the soldiers about putting the gun down...

BTW They hold the M16's and shotguns that way so they don't SHOOT someone on accident. I think he was a bit out of line about "PUT THAT DAMN RIFLE DOWN".. I am sorry but that's ARMY 101.. your M16 IS your primary tool.. period...

These are not rookies if you point a loaded M16 down or level it's gonna go boom eventually.

[1369]

Vash, depends on how you were trained. These folks are trained to shoot to kill in a hostile environment, not exactly what you want on our home turf.

[Jelly]

Vashner,
are you seriously trying to instruct a 3 star general in Army Rules 101? :lol

[clubalien]

while the locals and fema have all screwed up we cannot have an offical resident of them taking over the guard when governor doesn't want to in this situation. STATES rights or did the republicans decided they dikdn't care anymoe

[Jelly]

I'm all for revoking Louisiana's states rights at this point.

[Shelly]

Maybe Kanye can say she hates black people now.

[Vashner]

Vashner,
are you seriously trying to instruct a 3 star general in Army Rules 101? :lol

I said.. it's standard procedure to hold the rifle up when loaded. And that freaking out over it was uncalled for. There is a reason over the years that rules where developed for safe handling of firearms.

A lot of injuries result from accidents. What they really would need to do is unload the chamber if your not going to properly hold the rifle / shotgun.

Not just set it down loaded. And I started off saying the General needs a medal. What I am doing is second guessing him. It's a discussion forum... get used to it.

[Dos]

no it can't be... the local officials have no control over their own city.. just ask exstatic about it.. he will tell you it's all the federal govt's fault cause they are suppose to run everything from the toilets in the public parks to the street repairs of every city... no it simply can't be... it has to be bush's fault... the left will never understand anything less than that....

[Nbadan]

Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state's emergency operations center said Saturday.

The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. "Quite frankly, if they'd been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals," said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.

Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/03/AR2005090301680.html)

So in order for Blanco to handover control of the National Guard she would have had to fist declare Martial Law and according to several inside sources, signed a waiver absolving the Feds of any responsibility up to that point in this disaster.

[JoeChalupa]

I too agree that she dropped the ball. The people come first and to hell with the power struggle!!

[boutons]

"to hell with the power struggle"

Of course, so why has FEMA been "arguing org charts and lines of responsibility" NOW when we've never had this shit in earlier hurricanes, esp those in shrub's brother's state of FL, even when hit with 4 hurricanes hit last year, or in Andrew?

PROTECTING the people comes first, shrub has told us since 9/11 (but not before, when he was too busy ramming through tax cuts for the rich/corps and wet-dreaming about Iraq) that he is repsonsible for the security of the USA. Well, he has fucked over his responsiblity at impeachable levels, causing 1000s of deaths (compare with an "Repug-impeachable" blow-job).

Shrub/OMB failed to budget sufficiently to maintain and beef up the levees, and actually cut the funds for the levees since shrub came into office.

Don't ever forget: if the levees had held, Katrina would have been just another bad hurricane, Andrew class, which FEMA has handled well in the past, but not after shrub/HLS gutted FEMA and gave it to inexperienced political cronies instead of emergency professionals.

shrub/Repugs want all the Mission Accomplished spurious glory when they think they can sell it, but they NEVER admit any responsibility when they fuck things up (Iraq, Katrina, HLS/FEMA). And nobody's "buying" the shrub/FEMA finger-pointing and sliming of NO/LA. Katrina was multi-state FEDERAL disaster zone. I expect Mike Brown will be taking the George Tenet route, including Medal of Freedom for his impeccable Mission Accomplished.

[xrayzebra]

Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/03/AR2005090301680.html)

So in order for Blanco to handover control of the National Guard she would have had to fist declare Martial Law and according to several inside sources, signed a waiver absolving the Feds of any responsibility up to that point in this disaster.

They have a Governor in La and Mayor in New Orleans, news to me. They seemed to have been absent from the start. Guess they were stressed out and need a trip to Vegas along with their Policemen(?).

[Vashner]

Mayor was there all along.. I like that guy... Yea he had to go to an operations center but you need communications to bring in relief.

Blanco is too much of a pansy and not a leader.

[Jelly]

Mayor was there all along.. I like that guy... Yea he had to go to an operations center but you need communications to bring in relief.

Blanco is too much of a pansy and not a leader.

And to think just about everyone on this board jumped my shit for calling her weak last Tuesday. The only leadership she offered on that Tuesday press conference was in her firm declaration that Wednesday would be a National Day of Prayer. A lot of use that was.

[Vashner]

They played a sound clip of the Mayor saying that the Gov needed 24 hours to "think over" the presidents offer of active duty troops.
The mayor just wanted the troops and didn't give a crap about the gov "24 hours".