Redstate

I agree that these issues need to be revisited.  The first option was no option at all.  I don't understand why there would be a problem with the second option.

It shouldn't have been a problem in any case.  There isn't any problem with deploying for search and rescue without either option as far as I can tell.

You should link your New York Times article.

imho,

Stanford

We do not yet know the whole truth about what went wrong last week in Southeast Louisiana, but as more and more information leaks out I for one am eager to digest any new information that contributes to my understanding of this event.

And it's not likely we're going to know for some time.  But what really astonishes me is that for all the pious homilies about saving people's lives and streamlining bureaucracy and putting people first that we have a system in place that would result in a 24-hour delay in making a decision of the kind Blanco was faced with.  

Why 24 hours?  Did he have to ask her lawyers whether it was a good idea to have troops in the state?  When the governors get together for their yearly conferences, do they discuss issues like coordinating with federal authorities in the aftermath of major disasters, or do they just network and talk up their plans for improving education, as they did this year?  This seems to me to be the kind of decision that a governor who was on the ball should have been able to make in an hour or less, if not immediately.  Where's the beef here?

It's also interesting that after the complete failure to evacuate the neediest in New Orleans, the city government is now faced with the task of booting the people who probably don't need to leave.

Government in action!  

They cannot understand why. They live on high ground in the Bywater neighborhood, and their house escaped structural damage. They are healthy and have enough food and water to last almost a year.

They have a dog to protect them, a car with a full tank of gasoline should they need to leave quickly and a canoe as a last resort. They said they used it last week to rescue 100 people.

"We're not the people they need to be taking out," Mr. Kay said. "We're the people they need to be coordinating with."

Unfortunately these people don't have a legal leg to stand on here:  there are no Federal or local authorities in New Orleans to hear their cases, and so I guess it depends on how aggressive the troops are willing to be to evict these people.  

[Side note:  They don't call New Orleans the "Big Easy."  One of the reaons more genteel observers from around the country have been at a loss to comprehend this disaster is because New Orleans is well, different:

In the French Quarter, Addie Hall and Zackery Bowen found a unusual way to make sure that police officers regularly patrolled their house. Ms. Hall, 28, a bartender, flashed her breasts at the police vehicles that passed by, ensuring a regular flow of traffic.

Apparently this is a fairly common practice in NO.  Local color.  People from the suburbs will just never understand.  And this:

Ms. Harris said she did not want to leave. "I haven't even run out of weed yet," she said.

Well, no wonder it's so difficult for us to sort all this out.  We just don't understand some people's priorities in the Big Easy.]

link the NYT article. The link came right after the words "This story from the ..." and right before the words "... gives a telling and insightful perspective."

As far as your second point goes, I'd like to direct your attention to the following passage (also from the NYT story): "While combat troops can conduct relief missions without the legal authority of the Insurrection Act, Pentagon and military officials say that no active-duty forces could have been sent into the chaos of New Orleans on Wednesday or Thursday without confronting law-and-order challenges."

you know that they do need to leave.  Everyone who remains in NO is likely to contract some kind of disease, perhaps a fatal one.  If they then have contact with the general population all he** can break loose.

I think everyone should go, at least for a time.  It isn't really surprising -- just tragic -- that the best-prepared people in the city are being told to leave last.  New Orleans could have avoided this catastrophe if it got the worst-prepared people out first.

As a conservative, with a healthy respect for state's rights, I do not blame Governor Blanco for rejecting the first option. There are times when a Governor must surrender control of his/her National Guard units to federal authorities, as when Pete Wilson did it in 1992. But that is the Governor's call to make, and I will not second-guess Governor Blanco's decision not to do so in this case.

But earlier in this diary you said

I was equally confident that President Bush would be able to effectively assist her in the evacuation and relief efforts.  In both instances, my confidence was misplaced.

It seems to me that if you are going to credit her with making the call consistent with her authority as Governor, it is not reasonable to then "lose confidence" in the President for doing the things he did consistent with his authority as President.

We live in a federal republic. If you have any belief in the structure of our system, and you say you have a healthy respect for states' rights, then must you not also be prepared to understand when a President does not violate those rights?

It seems to me that, to a degree, this discussion, like many others on this subject, is firmly rooted in the gelatin of "coulda, shoulda, if only.'

One reason to federalize is it allows them to confiscate guns from homeowners.  I just read this was going on.

It will be interesting to see  how this plays.  I am not sure but that homeowners need their guns.  Seems this is when you would want one.

Google - "Guns confiscated New Orleans".  The article I found was from the Houston Chronicle.

Thinks for pointing out your link for me.  This is the link for the Houston Chronicle article:

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/3346578

Stanford

...allows them to confiscate guns?

...and why isn't there more commentary on this?

I don't really know any more about it.  

I suspect it is part of martial law but that is just a guess.  I would hide my gun.

Stanford

what it is about the situation that allows them or calls for them to confiscate weapons. If I draw my weapon on a police officer or Guardsman then fine, but simply having a weapon is not prima facie evidence of anything except the US and the Louisiana Constitutions at work.

The persons, in the main, that are left in N.O. are those whose homes NEVER flooded who have stayed PRIMARILY to defend their property from ne'er-do-wells.

Again, I ask --- What gives anyone, obviously barring affirmative action requiring disarmament, the authority to confiscate arms from American citizens?

/shake head side-to-side sadly

has not declared martial law.  That would have allowed them to simply appropriate the LA National Guard.

Is it legal for local police to confiscate firearms? Probably not, but under the circumstances no one will call them on it.

"Is it legal for local police to confiscate firearms? Probably not, but under the circumstances no one will call them on it."

Well, I could bring up some "UN Commisar" line, often heard before 2000, and counter with "under the circumstances no one will call them on it."

:|

I didn't "credit" Blanco for her decision not to give up her National Guard troops.  I merely said I would not second-guess that particular decision.  On the other hand, I most certainly DO "second-guess" her failure to make any decision at all, and in particular, her failure to accept the second option, which would have left her in control of all of the armed forces currently in Louisiana.

As for Bush, I certainly have not lost confidence in his ability to perform his constitutional function. But in crises like these the President must be able to cooperate with a state governor in bringing relief to his/her state, even if that governor is a quixotic, indecisive, ninny. In this case, there seems to be a clear lack of cooperation going on between the state and federal governments, which almost certainly represents a failure of both parties to effectively coordinate their plans.  I'm not sure why you didn't understand these basic points, but if you read what I wrote carefully you'll see I wasn't talking about the nature of presidential or gubernatorial authority at all.