The Inevitable...And The Immovable

Relief Helicopter Crashes in New Orleans

This is breaking and no word yet as to survivors. Never seen it fail; send hundreds of choppers into the sky and some are bound to come back hard. Here's wishing that the brave crew are a-okay.

Then there's the absolutely ludicrous: More active duty, regular army troops will be needed as the Blankinator stalls relief efforts.

Impeach it, and put someone in it's place that has at least a trace of gut.

From the Washington Post.

Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state’s emergency operations center said Saturday.The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request.

“Quite frankly, if they’d been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals,” said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.

A senior administration official said that Bush has clear legal authority to federalize National Guard units to quell civil disturbances under the Insurrection Act and will continue to try to unify the chains of command that are split among the president, the Louisiana governor and the New Orleans mayor.

Louisiana did not reach out to a multi-state mutual aid compact for assistance until Wednesday, three state and federal officials said. As of Saturday, Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency, the senior Bush official said.“The federal government stands ready to work with state and local officials to secure New Orleans and the state of Louisiana,” White House spokesman Dan Bartlett said. “The president will not let any form of bureaucracy get in the way of protecting the citizens of Louisiana.”Blanco made two moves Saturday that protected her independence from the federal government: She created a philanthropic fund for the state’s victims and hired James Lee Witt, Federal Emergency Management Agency director in the Clinton administration, to advise her on the relief effort.

"She doesn’t lead, she doesn’t follow. All she seems to do is block everyone else, while people continue to suffer. Whether she let New Orleans rot because Mayor Nagins, a fellow Democrat, stabbed her in the back by supporting her Republican opponent in the governor’s race may never be known. What is becoming clearer from this article and others, along with exasperated comments from rescuers who’ve ended up sitting on their thumbs awaiting authorization via her elusive personal signature, is that she’s the main nail that needs to get hammered. Bush will either have to federalize the guard to take it out of her inept hands, or continue sending in more active duty military that’s outside her control."

Getting back to her Sept 2 letter to the President, she waited only two paragraphs before unleashing this.

"I request the expeditious return of the Headquarters of the 256th Brigade Combat Team as they have completed their mission in the Iraqi theatre (sic) of operations and they are urgently needed here at home. I request that you remission this unit to Louisiana where they will become part of the recovery efforts in their home state. As the remainder of the Brigade returns, I request that they be missioned by the Department of Defense to assist civil authorities in Hurricane Katrina recovery operations in Louisiana."

Memo To Governor Blank-Brain: The word is spelled THEATER not Theatre. This isn't France or some other dirty place where you make things up as you go along, okay?