The Federal Emergency Management Agency handed over the reins of their authority to the LA governor???!!!?? This really does need to be looked at!
Did you forget to include a sarcasm tag?
This is a federal system. There are vestiges of State's rights left in the country - at least when there aren't Clintons in the White House.The scandal is not that the governor was able to block the movement of people in an emergency situation, the scandal is that Governor Blanco in fact did block the Red Cross from supplying people with food and water. And blankets.
And the really big scandal is that establishment journalism did not then, nor even now does not, ask the Red Cross where the relief supplies were.
The real scandal is that, with the connivance of the FCC, big journalism arrogantly proclaims its own objectivity. To do that is is to argue from the premise of superior virtue. And to do that is to engage in sophistry, which is an ironclad proof of lack of objectivity.
The real scandal is that the journalism establishment is stuffing the fecklessness of the Governor of Louisiana and the Mayor of New Orleans down the memory hole before your very eyes, and fabricating a Republican "scandal" out of whole cloth. The real scandal is that "objective" journalism merged with the Democratic Party during the Vietnam War.
Cindy Sheehan, Rush Limbaugh, and CBS
August 22, 2005 | conservatism_IS_compassion
FEMA did not hand over reins of authority. The state....any state, including Louisianna is in charge from the get go. State's rights. If a situation becomes so out of control that the state cannot handle it, then they can REQUEST assistance from the appropriate federal agencies.
Generally the agency the Governor will first go to is the National Guard in their state. The guard does not have policing authority, but they can do rescue etc.
FEMA is not a rescue organization, it is not a first responder organization. It is an organization that works to coordinate agencies such as the Red Cross, all the faith based organizations, volunteers etc. to provide relief, rebuilding etc.
The Governor of Louisianna and the Mayor of New Orleans messed up from the get go. It took President Bush personally calling them to even get them to issue a mandatory evacuation. But even when they did that, they did not follow their own plan, which was to use the buses to get people out of town that could be taken out, then the superdome was ONLY to be refuge for those who were too affirmed to leave via bus. Instead they basically sent everyone to the superdome, telling them to take food and water with them, also blankets etc.