The Obama Administration Doesn’t Care About You

 
*** The President doesn’t care about Kentuckians

Following the largest National Guard mobilization in Kentucky history, involving the state’s entire Army National Guard plus some Air and Marines, hundreds of thousands of people are still without power five days after a massive ice storm ravaged the state.

I have one question.  Where’s FEMA?

No, I have two questions.  Here’s the second: where is the media, screaming that the President doesn’t care and has not sent federal help in the wake of a massive natural disaster? 

Isn’t that what happened after Hurricane Katrina?   Don’t they still talk about the uncaring and incompetent Bush administration that failed to help the suffering people of Louisiana and Mississippi?  During the summer, by the way, when no one was in danger of freezing to death.

“With the length of this disaster and what we’re expecting to be a multi-day process here, we’re concerned about the lives and the safety of our people in their own homes,” Beshear said, “and we need the manpower in some of the rural areas to go door-to-door and do a door-to-door canvass … and make sure they’re OK.”

Thousands of people were staying in motels and shelters, asked to leave their homes by authorities who said emergency teams in some areas were too strapped to reach everyone in need of food, water and warmth. The outages disabled water systems, and authorities warned it could be days or weeks before power was restored in the most remote spots.  Yahoo News

Still no FEMA.  Still no federal aid.  Still the media doesn’t care.  I guess natural disasters under Democratic presidents are local responsibilities.

 

The President doesn’t care if he turns a recession into a Depression.  Can you say Smoot-Hawley?   Can you say union payoff?

The Washington Post reports on a controversial provision in Obama’s stimulus package, one that could make the recession worse and affect the world’s economies.  Similar to the Smoot-Hawley act that essentially helped create the Great Depression, this provision forbids the use of foreign iron and steel in any stimulus project.

Proponents of expanding the “Buy American” provisions enacted during the Great Depression, including steel and iron manufacturers and labor unions, argue that it is the only way to ensure that the stimulus creates jobs at home and not overseas.

Opponents, including some of the biggest blue-chip names in American industry, say it amounts to a declaration of war against free trade. That, they say, could spark retaliation from abroad against U.S. companies and exacerbate the global financial crisis.  [snip]

The proposals are meant to regenerate heavy manufacturing jobs in the United States by forcing government contractors to use domestic materials and equipment, even if they are more expensive. Yet U.S. industrial giants including Caterpillar, General Electric and the domestic aerospace industry are emerging as strong opponents. [snip]

“Any student of history will tell you that one of the most significant mistakes of the 1930s is when the U.S. embraced protectionism,” Lane [government affairs director of Caterpillar] said. “It had a cascading effect that ground world trade almost to a halt, and turned a one-year recession into the Great Depression.”

Sources close to the issue say it appears a response is still being formulated.  I’ll bet.  There are no easy answers to this one.

Welcome to the real world, Mr. Obama, where actions have consequences.  It’s not Just Words anymore.

 

*** The Obama administration is helping propagate the biggest fraud EVER in the history of science, and you will be paying the price for years to come

We have the interesting spectacle of politicians and Global Warming True Believers like Al Gore jockeying to get the most spectacularly outrageous headlines in the news, while real scientists are coming out in droves to disavow the AGW theory.  Interesting.

Meanwhile, Obama’s new Climate Czar is a True Believer as well as a socialist. 

Maybe that’s why Obama isn’t sending FEMA to help out in Kentucky – just think of the reduced carbon emissions from 600,000 people without power.

But what worries me most is that the credibility of science may never recover — and perhaps it shouldn’t.  [emphasis added]  Credibility has to be earned, and once it’s squandered may never be recovered. By now far too many scientists have knowingly colluded in an historic fraud, one that would put Bernie Madoff to shame. We are seeing political larceny here on a truly planetary scale.

Why should scientists who’ve gambled their own reputations on this fakery ever be trusted again? They shouldn’t. Would you entrust your life savings to Bernie Madoff? Right.

…It’s been flamingly obvious for years now that the hypothesis of human-caused global warming violates all the basic rules and safeguards that protect the integrity of normal, healthy science. That’s why AGW (anthropogenic global warming) looks like a massive fraud, the biggest fraud ever in the history of science.

If that’s true, anybody who cares about science should be outraged. Even if you don’t care about that ask yourself if you want your next medical exam to be honest. Or the next time you drive across a traffic bridge, do you want the engineering tests to be falsified? If scientific corruption becomes endemic, we risk losing one of the great jewels of our culture.

All in pursuit of power.

FEMA – 1, Local Government – 0

My weekend is going to be a lot less stressful than I had anticipated.  That would be because yesterday I mmade a reality chick and admitted there is no way I can get this FEMA grant done in time for Monday’s deadline.

I made that decision after spending Friday morning working on it and trying to get someone, anyone, at EMA headquarters for the state to answer a phone call.  You see, I still had questions.  Lots of questions.  And no one answered their hone.  And no one returned a call.  And I had to sit there and look at all the things I didn’t know and decide I can only beat my head against this wall for so long before I knock myself unconscious.

In the grand scheme of FEME things I cam not trying to procure alot of money – maybe $125,000.  But my gosh, this poor guy’s house gets flooded lamost every year.  Doesn’t that count for something?  I can’t figure a way around the fact he doesn’t show up in their flood plain, which doesn’t have a certified base level but doesn’t stop them for using it as Gospel.  Maybe there is a way, but until someone answers their phones and my questions I will never know.

So, I packed it all up and gave up.  What a discouraging feeling.

Meanwhile, the township’s fiscal officer is wading htrough paperwork to try and recoup about $50,000 in expenses to the township from the windstorm in September.  Her stack of paper is as thick as mine, but then I had a 40 page online application to deal using my stack of documentation and she “just” has to fill out the paperwork hiding among hers.  I ffel her pain.

FEMA is a four letter word to both of us.

A New Four-Letter Word

For those of you who think they want the government to provide their health care, boy do I have a word for you.  It has four letters and starts with “F.”

Yep.  That’s it.  FEMA.  As in the acronym for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.  I don’t want any government that invented this to have authority over my medical care. 

“Just fill out the online application and we will start treatment for your heart attack.  You’re number 437 for the next available computer.”

I have attended meetings on eligibility for FEMA flood grants, a workshop on how to do the required cost/benefit analysis, and one-on-ones with the homeowner we are trying to help.  The homeowner whose house has flooded five out of the last six years.  The homeowner whose house will probably continue to flood unless something is done. 

I have spent innumerable hours on the phone with various county and state employees, gleaning esoteric information they just have to have.  I have spent even more hours days actually working on the cost/benefit analysis software (give it an award for being some of the least user-friendly software invented by man) and the online grant application itself.  I am trying to get a grant to buy this house and tear it down, since changes in the watershed appear to have caused intractable flooding problems. 

The deadline is Monday, and it’s not looking good for getting it done by then.

I had Hope earlier in the day, until the newly certified first floor elevation reading showed the house is one foot too high to qualify.  You see, if your house isn’t in their flood plain you are out of luck.  It also doesn’t seem to matter that they themselves don’t have a certified base elevation for their flood plain to justify what is and what isn’t a flood area.

So I started in a different module of the program, using a USDA flood map and trying to justify the grant through repetitive losses.  That one came out even worse.  I need to talk to someone at state EMA tomorrow and see what I am doing wrong.  Maybe nothing.  Maybe this is what I get for all this work – booted before the project even qualifies to apply.

Oh, and let’s not even talk about the historic preservation/endangered species section.  I don’t think there are too many endangered species living in this guy’s yard, but who have I talked to in order to document that?  Where is my attached justification?  Not to mention that he lives near a historic road, for crying out loud.  I need documention to show that the project won’t have any adverse effect on the road.

I like a challenge, but I’ve decided that FEMA is the most bureaucratic agency I have ever dealt with.  I have dealt with a lot, and I haven’t found a federal one yet that is user friendly for the average person.

Keep that in mind when they start talking Universal Health Care.  In the federal government service doesn’t go to the person who needs it most, but to the one who knows how to work the system best.

If I were a drinking woman I would be hitting the bottle pretty hard right now.  Instead, I am going shopping.  Nothing like a little retail therapy.

Sunday Soliloquy

Coverage of preparations for Hurricane Gustav are showing how much FEMA and Louisiana’s governor Bobby Jindal have their act together.  He asked the feds for help days ago, and together they have evacuated 90% of coastal residents.

You do all remember that we have a federalist form of government, right?  State governors have final say over affairs within their state and the federal government cannot come in to help without being invited.  That permission wasn’t given until wa-a-ay  too late last time.

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Many on the liberal blogosphere are gleefully hoping the hurricane is mishandled so it can be used for political fodder.  Michael Moore said on national TV ”Gustav is proof that there is a God in heaven.”  And former DNC chairman Don Fowler is on tape laughing about the fact the storm will hit on the first day of the Republican convention.   People’s lives and homes are on the line and they are hoping it’s bad just for political gain.

Shame on all of them.

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The federal government and FEMA have been very busy over the past few years developing a comprehensive Incident Command System in case of natural or man-made disasters, and teaching it all across the land. 

As an elected official I have personal experience with this system, since every employee of every governmental entity has to learn where they fit in it and take online tests to receive certifications.  (I had to study for tests on three sections.) 

If things go wrong in dealing with this hurricane it won’t be because of lack of preparation.  There are some things you just can’t prevent or foresee.

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The Democrats and the media seem to be in full panic mode over Sarah Palin, with misogynism falling out of talking heads everywhere.  Their chief point seems to be that she is not experienced enough to be qualified.  Compare her accomplishments with Obama’s at_this_site.   Good grief is she more experienced and better prepared.  And ethical.  (It’s kind of humorous, too.)

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I found screen shots of the decision on Daily Kos to make up and run the story about Sarah Palin’s youngest son not actually being her own but her daughters.  Daily Kos is as left wing a blog as you will find anywhere, and they actually had a poll about whether to run the story even though they knew it wasn’t true.  A plurality of those responding (49%) said control of the government was at stake and anything was worth it to win. 

Despicable.

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 N~ came in my back door this evening and excitedly told me to come see what was in my garden.  Since I had just picked everything I couldn’t imagine what he was talking about.

“Ticks!” he said excitedly.  “You have lots of ticks in your garden!”

This is what he saw.

                        

It’s a squash bug, or squash vine borer, a key pest of winter squash and pumpkins.  I had seen them all over the butternut squash while I was in the garden earlier.  They are very large bugs, and I would hate to meet a tick that big.

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I’m making a birthday cake for Kelli, whose birthday is on Tuesday, for Elaine’s Labor Day picnic tomorrow.  Happy Birthday Kelli!