"The White house really screwed up as usual by not going on the truth offensive right away."
WRONG- Homeland and FEMA is the mega bureacracy that is supposed to prevent this BS. Not the White House!
The United States Coast Guard started rescues on day one and had Homestead and FEMA actly as swiftly, there would be no problem.
The "permission" allibi is legalese lawyer BS because they dropped the ball - The Coast Guard didn't wait for no stinkin permission.
By the time the White House got involved, they saw that Brown had to go.
"The "permission" allibi is legalese lawyer BS because they dropped the ball - The Coast Guard didn't wait for no stinkin permission."
The U.S. Coast Guard HAS standing authority over waterways in the United States at all times good or bad. They didn't need permission from anyone. The National Guard does not have standing authority and the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines are specifically forbidden by law unless authorized.
You say, "The United States Coast Guard started rescues on day one and had Homestead and FEMA actly as swiftly, there would be no problem. The "permission" allibi is legalese lawyer BS because they dropped the ball - The Coast Guard didn't wait for no stinkin permission"
There would be no Problem????? Come on - the MSM must be affecting how you see things. Believe me, there were lots of problems and the response time of the Feds had very little to do with it!
You are definitely clueless because your first statement assumes we have a KING not a President and the second statement presupposes that the CG HAD TO GET PERMISSION.....which of course they did NOT NEED as it is their stated MISSION.
Coast Guard didn't have to because they are the ONLY military branch with civilian/military standing by statute.
The "permission alibi" is the law. The only way the President can force federal aid on the state is through the insurrection act, and a hurricane is not an insurrection.
Permission from state authority is not "BS". We have laws that give States authority and emergency response is one of those areas of authority. It is so fundamental that I recall being taught about Posse Commitatus in one of the very first classes I received in Army officer basic.
It is really a basic concept. Try this on. When a dictator wants to seize power, he declares a state of emergency and pushes local authorities out. Our constitution is designed to prevent that.
This emergency system has worked acceptably for several decades. Now because we have a very large disaster to which LOCAL AUTHORITIES failed to respond you want to ignore the check on despotism that our system of government is designed to provide?
Think this through.
That's the Coast Guard's mission. FEMA's mission was, in the plan, to provide follow on support for evacuees. They were leaning forward and had provisions, and people (including non government people like the Red Cross, in position to do that. Not as close as one might have liked, but until the storm hit, they couldn't risk having those pre positioned people and provisions taken out by the storm itself. The Coast Guard is by it's nature more mobile than fleets of SUVs and 18 wheelers. IIRC, the Air Force (out of Eglin) and Navy, off the Bataan, were on scene about the same time as the Coast Guard, and the National Guard helicopters. But all those were mostly doing rescue work, not bringing in supplies or ground forces. That was the plan. The National Guard had at least 300 troops on site before the storm hit, along with provisions to allow the folks in the superdome to ride out the storm. However those people were not supposed to be in the Superdome beyond the next day, so the provisions for longer than say two days, were not there.
The mayor, by not deploying the buses as per the plan, and remember the superdome and other areas were high and dry until Wednesday, screwed the pooch. Then there was the other little problem of rescue helicopters being fired upon from the area of the 'dome, and of the buses being rushed by mobs which scared the drivers off in many cases.