Agreed, and I’ll remind you that not only did “The marxists in our govt (pay) close attention to New Orleans after Katrina,” the LA governor prohibited aid and ice and food trucks sitting on the LA border after discussion with the DNC.
I hadn’t heard that but it is believable. After hurricane Andrew hit south Florida, the then governer Chiles (D) waited 5 days before granting then President Bush permission to send in federal aid. And the media dutifully reported on how Bush didn’t care about he people in South Florida. What they didn’t report was that the law requires that the President get permission from the state governer to send in feds. Chiles knew this full well and milked it for all it was worth. Kind of a shame that when this same crap happened in NOLA, that Bush didn’t learn from his father.
“the LA governor prohibited aid and ice and food trucks sitting on the LA border after discussion with the DNC.”
“NEVER LET A GOOD CRISIS GO TO WASTE”
Obama White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel
Wider Powers for U.S. Forces in Disasters Are Under Review
The White House would like to dispatch troops faster and give them law enforcement duties.
Katrina’s Aftermath
September 11, 200
Peter Gosselin and Doyle McManus, Times Staff Writers
http://articles.latimes.com/2005/sep/11/nation/na-posse11
WASHINGTON — A senior White House official said Saturday that in the wake of the hurricane that demolished part of the nation’s Gulf Coast, the Bush administration was studying whether to expand the president’s powers to deploy the U.S. military in natural disasters.
Dan Bartlett, counselor to President Bush, said that the administration was reviewing whether to increase the president’s power to dispatch troops at the outset of a disaster and to give them law enforcement duties.
“There’s agreement that this is something that has to be studied,” Bartlett said in an interview.
The administration’s interest in expanding presidential powers to deploy the military on United States soil stems partly from its frustration over the inability to negotiate an agreement on chain of command with Louisiana’s governor in the first days after Hurricane Katrina struck.
The administration has been widely criticized for what was seen as its failure to send enough troops to Louisiana in the early days to maintain order.
One senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivity of the issue, said that two days after the storm hit, the White House proposed a single chain of command for troops who would be used to secure New Orleans.
Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco REJECTED THAT PROPOSAL, the official said.
Blanco has said that though she wanted the assistance of federal forces, SHE DID NOT WANT TO RELINQUISH COMMAND of the National Guard to the federal government.
The official said the administration WAS NEVER ABLE TO REACH AGREEMENT WITH BLANCO, but ultimately was able to establish a de facto single chain of command because Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honore, commander of Joint Task Force Katrina, had a close working relationship with Maj. Gen. Bennett Landreneau, the adjutant general of the Louisiana National Guard.
As the two worked to restore order in New Orleans, “they were attached at the hip,” the administration official said.
“By sheer force of personality and because of the mayor’s and governor’s praise of Gen. Honore, he through practice put into effect a single chain of command,” the administration official said.