Respectfully disagree; the dissimilarities are overwhelming. Katrina was an unprecedented (well, Galveston) natural disaster that overwhelmed a major city in a way it lacked resources to respond to. It was obvious when the hurricane directly struck the city that the federal government needed to lead. Here, I think Missourians, probably at the state level, still have the capacity to defuse this by assuring the public there’ll be an independent investigation of the shooting. I’m not sure that’s impossible and the feds must take over.
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That. Would. Be. AWESOME!
It does compare to Katrina in the pattern of the collapse of government which is what I said. It’s the same exact pattern that led to what became the Katrina fiasco. What is going on right now in Ferguson is a direct result of a failure of government from the local on up. If the local government actually did its job the police wouldn’t be in the streets terrorizing, and if the Governor did his job they wouldn’t have continued to do so for several days.
Before Katrina hit the New Orleans government fled town entirely. Mayor Nagin was in Dallas in a 4 star hotel enjoying himself. He’s now convicted of corruption charges, by the way. Governor Blanco refused to allow the national guard into New Orleans and the way the law was then the President couldn’t force them in. He did it anyway when things got way too bad especially following FEMA’s incompetency.
What should President Obama do? Well, he should be pressing Governor Nixon to tell the cops to stand down, declare an emergency in the area, and then have the cops reset their operation sans military equipment. If the Governor refuses to do so then he can do it himself thanks to a bill passed after Katrina to prevent stuff like this from occurring again where a state’s government impedes action on a crisis.
Obama’s poll numbers are a matter of public record. But your assertion that his entire presidency has been “wrought” with incompetence is far from obviously true, even if “wrought” meant what you think it does. (Psst: You mean “fraught.”) You’re welcome to make points, but trolling gets jumped on pretty hard here. Fair enough?
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This is NOT Katrina. This disaster was born of decades of politicians looking the other way not a natural disaster. Like all of oaur problems, this President inherited them, but he is wrong on one count: without a riot this would have been a one day story at most, it took social violence to get politicians to get off their asses and do something. I’m sorry to say that this will be the pattern going forward, entrenched power bases will not willingly give up power or challenge the status quo that serves them well without at least the threat of social violence.
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You can make the case that it’s a result of failure of local government. Without a doubt, it most certainly is. The mayor or city council should’ve fired the police chief after they began receiving more and more complaints about issues with the force. They should fire him now and replace him with an interm chief from another department. That’s local government’s responsibility. There’s no doubt there needs to be a review of every officer on the force, but the problem is what to do in the meantime. The police can’t simply go home as there are people looting and using the protests as an opportunity to raise hell. As a matter of public safety, police presence is unfortunately necessary.
I’m sorry but the military equipment is not the problem. The problem is so much deeper and wider than that and is systemic within the department. They didn’t kill Mike Brown with military equipment or arrest journalists with military equipment. The rubber bullets, tear gas, and dogs didn’t come from the military and are the same types of weapons that have been used against protesters by police for decades. Declaring a state of emergency won’t change that.
The problem is a racist police force headed up by tone deaf asshole who has allowed (accidentally or purposefully) his department to be invaded by racism, brutality, and hostility toward the community. There is no overnight fix. They can’t fire the entire force without having another one to replace them.
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Hey, never even saw it.
I hate to go all School House Rock, but this is yet another instance in which liberals are frustrated to discover that there are, in fact, constitutional limits on a president’s power to intervene in the state’s exercise of state police power.
Hurricane preparedness and response is a federal and, in particular, executive branch responsibility under the act that created FEMA. Demonstrations over a shooting by a local cop are, in the first instance, a state and local matter. The most the federal government can do is investigate whether there’s been a conspiracy to violate someone’s federally protected civil rights under color of authority–and the FBI were on the scene investigating that (albeit discretely, by FBI standards) within two days of the shooting.
He can’t take over the crowd management, he can’t send in troops, he can’t fire all the local cops.
Update: well, he can also work the phones and chew on the ear of the governor. It’s not a thing that talking to the press about makes work better, but he’d damn well better be doing it.
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The President is chief executive of the Federal government. He has no authority over state and local police.
Sorry, but you need a civics lesson.
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I brought up Katrina, but not because an entire city was wiped off the map by some outside force or something like with Katrina but because of government incompetency. Like it did with President Bush the incompetency of the levels of government below him become President Obama’s problem now whether or not he can go riding into the town on a white horse… although jokingly that would be an awesome sight to see.
Hurricane preparedness begins at the state level. I have actual expertise in this because that used to be my job from 2002 until mid 2006 when I got fed up with Louisiana’s incompetency. The state largely coordinates the disaster handling with only aid from the feds and only at the governor’s request. FEMA is just one of these things, and it was created to have a unified place for state governments to request and receive aid of all kinds. This process is easy to see by outsiders. Take Sandy for instance when President Obama was acting as supplier of aid to Chris Christie and others. Post-Katrina the red tape that used to exist with this process is largely gone. Again, I know of this personally because I helped handle preparedness for two additional major hurricanes before leaving.
I know of constitutional restrictions. Most of the problems that happened in New Orleans was because President Bush didn’t have the power to order out-of-state National Guard into Louisiana. FEMA was a problem, and it was incompetent to the point of ridiculousness, but Governor Blanco spent two of the days even refusing FEMA aid. Again, there’s nothing the President could do about that. Constitutional restrictions.
But, back to the point at hand. I never suggested sending national guard nor his personally handling crowd control, but you seem to have realized that with your update mentioning phone calls. The governor of Missouri can order the cops to stand down after issuing a state of emergency, and despite arguments to the contrary from others having the cops reset without the trappings of a modern soldier while laying down ground rules for their behavior would help a lot. This isn’t just about Michael Brown anymore. It’s about the people’s rights as Americans. A crowd of people will feel far less intimidated by a grouping of policemen in blues than a bunch of pseudosoldiers in fatigues, helmets, and assault rifles. It’s common sense.
Then give me one, kind sir.
President Obama is the chief executive of the U.S. government. He is the top law enforcement officer in the country. He is our head of state. He has limits on his power, but this is an executive matter. Many Presidents of the past have taken direct control of issues within state borders which began with the Whiskey Rebellion under President Washington. Guess what? President Obama has already done this by federalizing the investigation of Michael Brown’s shooting. He could do the same with the cops’ operations by sending the FBI as overseers to make sure they aren’t violating people’s rights. That’s happened before. It actually happened recently in New Orleans where the entire police department was oversaw by the federal government because of corruption problems at both the local and state leve. Haven’t heard of that already? Of course not. It happened in New Orleans. No one gives a crap.
Does that mean I think President Obama should here? No. He should postpone the rest of his vacation and take a more active role in this by being present and giving the impression he’s on top of things. Instead he’s simply coming off as if he’s waving it off and condoning their militaristic behavior while condemning their arrests of reporters and of excessive force. That might actually be his views on this. He hasn’t stopped the Pentagon program that gave these cops these things anyway.
You know what? I’m tired of repeating myself.