Okay, any lawyer capable of looking at a hypothetical?

Official A in charge of security gives to orders to have troops confine them to the bridge;

official B in charge of relief prevents food or water from getting to them, and/or sends it elsewhere, claiming he didn’t know, oh, that there was anybody at the convention center;

official C in charge of evacuations claims the same as B, nobody told him there were people on the bridge. Under ICS, as discussed at Pat & Teresa Hayden’s, these three officials do not talk to each other, but only to Brown.

And so some or all of the people die.

Is there any legal responsibility?

(I suppose you need a D, in charge of determining where people are, and passing that info to Brown)

Is this a rhetorical question? It’s perfectly conceivable that Republicans would think that; why, it’s been at the heart of their social security philosophy since Reagan’s “welfare cadillac” days at the least. Why shouldn’t it be at the heart of their homeland security philosophy too?

I loath the man. I was chilled when I saw his being barely able to raise concern for that which was happening; I was filled with contempt when, standing beside daddy, he couldn’t tell the difference between “coaches” and “coast”.

They are anarchists, which may bother some people. In my experience they’re very well organized anarchists, and they are certainly less likely to stay out of town on FEMA’s orders.

Their next bus is leaving in a few days. I certainly hope that in a few days New Orleans will either be deserted or decently fed; but if not, I’m betting my dollar will go farther with Food Not Bombs than the Red Cross. As soon as I found out the Red Cross was banned and FNB was going in, I made a contribution to FNB in the same amount I had made to the Red Cross.

You can’t see my tongue in my cheek, but believe me it’s there.