What balls. Is there any power Bush doesn’t feel the White House should have? On the other hand, with so many National Guard troops in Iraq, are there any left here to be used to help in disasters?
Governors lose in power struggle over National Guard
A little-noticed change in federal law packs an important change in who is in charge the next time a state is devastated by a disaster such as Hurricane Katrina.
To the dismay of the nation’s governors, the White House now will be empowered to go over a governor’s head and call up National Guard troops to aid a state in time of natural disasters or other public emergencies. Up to now, governors were the sole commanders in chief of citizen soldiers in local Guard units during emergencies within the state.
A conflict over who should control Guard units arose in the days after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. President Bush sought to federalize control of Guardsmen in Louisiana in the chaos after the hurricane, but Gov. Kathleen Blanco (D) refused to relinquish command.
Over objections from all 50 governors, Congress in October tweaked the 200-year-old Insurrection Act to empower the hand of the president in future stateside emergencies. In a letter to Congress, the governors called the change “a dramatic expansion of federal authority during natural disasters that could cause confusion in the command-and-control of the National Guard and interfere with states’ ability to respond to natural disasters within their borders.”
This would not be necessary if Blanco had done her job. Bush doesn’t want to take the blame for local failures again.
This would not be necessary if Blanco had done her job.
Necessary for what?
Insuring that we never have another presidential election in the US?
Yeah, I wear an aluminum foil hat. That doesn’t mean I’m wrong.
Let’s face it. The few neocon ninnies who will still admit to voting for Bush have to reach for any excuse they can find for his incompetent and boorish behavior.
They’ll probably settle on sunspots or demonic possession.
And here I was thinking that this whole states’ rights thing was becoming passé.
# 1 is right. Blanco didn’t do her job and Bush got blamed.
1. The federal response to Katrina (while it could have been even better) was faster and better than with Andrew or any previous hurricane proving that lessons were learned.
2. #1 is right. The federal gov’t had no authority to do anything until assistance was asked for by the governor. Blanco in the meantime was too busy having a bitchfest with Nagin. The delay was their fault not Bush’s. The article talks about a state’s ability to respond – well, Blanco proved that under her “leadership” her state was incapable of dealing with the situation.
So now Congress hears the complaints and remedies the situation, but that’s no good either. It must be nice to live in a world where you can have it both ways at once.
(You want the real cause look to Al Gore. Gore invented the Internet. It used to be about Global Cooling, but after the Internet it was all about Global Warming (TM) therefore Al Gore invented Global Warming (TM). Global Warming (TM) causes bigger hurricanes, therefore Katrina is directly Al Gore’s fault. )
This would not have happened if we returned to the original view of the Senate representing the State legislatures. I’ve always believed that we should eliminate direct election of Senators, and replace it by the Senators appointed by each State’s legislature.
Doing this will return us to a better balance of power between the States and the Federal Government. (As an added bonus, It may also reduce (but not eliminate) the power of special interests in influencing Congress — it’d be tougher for special interests to bribe enough state legislators in enough States — more layers they have to work through.)
As it is now, States are now becoming “admnistrative districts” of an all powerful Federal Government. If the States can’t check Federal power, there’s pretty much nothing left to check that power. The liberal view of an all powerful Federal government bringing justice back to the little people is now being realized, only that it will be the little people who will be the ultimate losers. Be careful of what you ask for…
#6. Ah – the razor sharp mind of the neocon in its natural habitat of the excuse and justification jungle. Its form of camouflage? The “its Clinton’s/Gore’s fault”.
Hopefully this vile parasite will be exterminated in future outbreaks by the effluvia of its own bullshit.
#7, and as long as Senators are just going to be glorified representatives, the lengths of their terms should be shortened to be brought more inline with the house of Congress which was meant to have that role.
On one hand liberals blame bush for not doing enough in New Orleans (even though he legally couldn’t) and now they blame him for wanting to do to much? Can we reach a compromise? How about this?
When a natural disaster happens, blame the officials who do have the power, and *do not* demand government expand to meet your every problem in life. If we demand expansion, the Federal government is all too happy to do so.
How about instead of relying more on the government we spend more time figuring out ways to enable the free market to solve these problems. For an laissez fair economic approach, I would go to http://www.econtalk.org and check out the podcast on the economics of disaster. There are a few interesting case studies on the inherent inefficiencies of state/federal governments and how the free market can do a better job in some instances.
#11, well, there certainly are at least valid economic arguments for not having price controls during times of emergency and shortage. But then it all comes down to whose definition of “fair” do you want to use – fairness as measured in opportunity or in outcome. I, and I imagine you do too, prefer the former, but we are not usually in the majority these days I’m afraid.
This would make some sense if George Bush wasn’t in charge. With him manning the helm of the ship of state it just a case of the dumber leading the dumb. [heavy sigh]
The official name of this law should be the “Blanco-Nagin Incompetence Act”.
Too late for Bush, but the next time New Orleans is floating away, President Obama can actually do something about it.
As usual the idiots in #2, 5, 6, 10, & 14, don’t know what they are talking about. Right wing nut talk radio has really fed the clueless on this one.
FEMA is a federal agency and was involved for several days before the storm struck. They were involved with the planning, were there during the storm, and afterwards. I guess the idiots forget that it was FEMA agents that stopped the WalMart trailers full of bottled water from entering the storm zone the day after the storm. I guess the same idiots forgot all about the FEMA agent inside the Superdome begging for help for days while their masters did fly overs at 30,000 ft or ate dinner in Baton Rouge.
At issue was whether the Louisiana National Guard needed to be Federalized. Blanco wanted to keep them under State control while Bush refused to allow other NG units to come to LA until they were Federalized. It was not necessary that the NG be Federalized to carry out duties in other states provided the Federal Government didn’t object. Well guess what. The idiots above would prefer to blame Blanco instead of the power hungry monkey driving the ship of state onto the rocks.
There are probably several things Blanco could have done better. We know that Bush and FEMA could have done better.
Ooopps, my error.
In my post #15, I identified #2 when it should have been #1
Sorry VM, my apologies.
We can sit here and argue who was to blame all year…..the fact is, Nagin was the local offical in charge and completely blew it, not only did he panic, but he left the city with his family. Not only did he not order an evacuation, but he kept a running arguement with the National Wather service about their forecasts, then after the storm hit, he knew the Super Dome was full of people and refused to send any help(police should have been there BEFORE they allowed people into the Dome). Next comes the illustrious Governor Of La…….it is normal in disasters of this magnitude to allow the National Guard to be federalized. Not only did she refuse a normal request of the White House in any disaster, but she refused to order an evacuation of New Orleans before the storm came ashore(so did her partner in mediocrity Nagin) and it boogles the mind how these two people found the time to appear on television and whine, but couldn’t find the time to do their jobs.
FEMA did everything right, until the storm actually hit, then they fell apart.
And Bush was a typical manager, he left it up to the lower rungs of the ladder to handle(bad thing to do in a disaster for public relations) and they screwed his pooch.
All in all, it was a farce of mediocore officals from the city all the way up to the White House, that conspired to turn a disaster into a disaster.
I agree with this legislation.
Oh….Uncle Dave……there might be 40 or 50 left here, since they spent 3 days over the w/e during the midwest ice storms going door to door making sure people were accounted for and safe.
You may have missed that bit of news, since you were probably really busy checking out the tech advances at the big Porn Convention in Vegas over the w/e. 🙂
#15/16 – I was gonna say, #2 made the most salient points I’ve read in days. Is there a sunset provision on this change to the 200 YEAR-OLD Act? If not, my tinfoil is quivering not so much from the ravenously grasping threat now having its way with the republic – but from the next “administration”, no matter what their label, and the one after that…
For those commenting on Katrina and it being the sole cause of this change:
Read the news at the time. There was actually an argument and delay because the Federal Government that they be given complete control over the State until they decided to release control back to the Governor. Blanco would not agree to the complete hand over of Louisiana to the Federal Jurisdiction, and so no help was to be provided UNTIL an agreement could be reached.
Being that Blanco did not want to relinquish total control, due to several factors involving the profits from the Oil Refineries being stripped from the state rolls, there was a dispute.
Without the funds from the shared profit, Louisiana, a POOR state if there ever was one, would be in worse condition than it is or was.
Sorry, have to agree that the holdout by the Governor was appropriate.
She was looking out for herself, not her state (apparently, she gets a cut of that Oil Profit also somehow), but it was also a lot of monies that the state would not get back had control been fully realized by the Federal Agency.
#17, We can sit here and argue who was to blame all year…..the fact is, Nagin was the local offical in charge and completely blew it,
The scary part is you might believe that.
President George W. Bush declared a state of emergency in Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi two days before the hurricane made landfall.[9] That same evening, the NHC upgraded the section of the hurricane watch from Morgan City, Louisiana to the Alabama-Florida border to a hurricane warning, 12 hours after it was issued, and also issued a tropical storm warning for the westernmost Florida Panhandle.
Note that two days before landfall, New Orleans was still on the edge of the anticipated center.
Michael Chertoff, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, decided to take over the federal, state, and local operations officially on August 30, 2005, citing the National Response Plan.
but she refused to order an evacuation of New Orleans before the storm came ashore (so did her partner in mediocrity Nagin)
While Nagen might have ordered an evacuation sooner, he still ordered it 19 hrs before landfall and while the storm center was still undecided.
NOTE: All quotes from Wikipedia.
Also note that most of the loss of life in NO occurred when the Federally maintained levies broke.
To deny that this is a unwarranted power grab is bull.
#20…Dennis….thats bullcrap!! I don’t know in what alternate reality you came up with this in…but prove it, it’s just not true.
#21…but he didn’t follow through with his order Fusion. He didn’t provide a way to evacuate the poor and the elderly(remember the 100’s of busses parked next to the Super Dome, that ended up under water instead of being used to evac the poor)….he didn’t activate the city’s evac drill soon enough(why people drowned in Nursing homes)
I don’t care what Wikipedia says…this was nothing but almost criminal from the Mayor up to the Governor and total incompatence above that level.