Tag: Natural Disasters

Topic

Rush Limbaugh: Obama, Acting Through the National Hurricane Center, Tried to Ruin Republican Convention

Trish
isaac
Flooding in Plaquemines Parish, La. is eerily reminiscent of that other storm that Rush Limbaugh doesn't want us to talk about but the seventh anniversary of it is today

Rush Limbaugh has to be thinking that now would be as good a time as any to retire. His recent assertion that the National Hurricane Center (NHC) is conspiring to re-elect the president is all the evidence anyone needs that Rush would probably be happier at home, out of the reach of microphones.

Here’s what Rush said on his show earlier this week:

The hurricane center is the regime. The hurricane center is the Commerce Department. It’s the government. It’s Obama.

And as Obama, the NHC obviously wanted to disrupt the Republican National Convention by forecasting, while Isaac was still a tropical storm south of Haiti, that it could strengthen and threaten the gulf coast of Florida, including Tampa. Just listen to Rush’s version:

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From the Department of No Atheists in Foxholes

Trish

Our people are suffering now, and they need support now. And they (Congress) can all go down there and get back to work and figure out budget cuts later.

Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ), often suggested as a presidential candidate, disagreeing with Rep. Eric Cantor that before offering disaster aid, the federal government must make commensurate cuts in other areas.

Ron Paul: We Don’t Need FEMA, ‘That’s Why We Have the Second Amendment’

Jon Ponder

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

After the corporate media ignored his narrow loss to Michele Bachmann in the Ames Straw Poll earlier this month, Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul, the Big Government libertarian presidential candidate, and his supporters have been desperately seeking attention — primarily in the form of the same sort of claims of victimhood we hear from the likes of Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Sean Hannity and other self-righteous fringe dwellers.

Since when does corporate media filter out politicians’ blithering, nonsensical statements?

In an interview with MSNBC on Friday, however, Ron Paul attempted to insert himself into upcoming coverage of Hurricane Irene over the weekend by saying provocative things about FEMA.

In the interview, Paul, 76, lambasted FEMA and yearned for the olden days when Americans and their local governments were left to fend for themselves in the wake of natural disasters:

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God Smites GOP Leader Eric Cantor’s District with 5.8 Earthquake

Jon Ponder

map-cantor-district-earthquake-zone

Last summer, as a public service to our right-wing Christian friends, particularly those who live in the South, we asked, “Why is God Smiting the Deep South?”

Kudzu, which destroys 125,000 acres of the old Confederate states every year, was introduced in 1876, the same year that Southern conservatives overturned Reconstruction in favor of Jim Crow segregation

The article was intended as a wake-up call, because Republicans need to realize that God is punishing them for their hatefulness, warmongering, prideful ignorance and selfishness. He wants them to turn away from their hatred and fear of blacks, Latinos, gays, Arabs, Muslims and the billions of other people on the planet who are not old white Republicans. He wants them to renounce their evil ways and put their time and their tithes toward good works — like feeding the hungry, healing the sick and housing the homeless.

Last summer, the South was being punished in the form of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which primarily affected red and purple states along the Gulf Coast — a region that was still struggling to recover from the wrath of hurricanes Katrina and Ivan. We also pointed to the Exxon Valdez spill that smited red queen Sarah Palin’s Alaska in 1989.

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Our Perennial, Predictable Surprise* at Unintended Consequences

Trish

I stumbled on this video (thank you, K.Q.) after reading Buck’s recent posts on new deep water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and Florida Gov. Rick Scott, along with other authors writing about man-made disasters.

Camp makes an excellent point. We think these things up, but we never plan adequately for the downside.

*Yes, that was an intentional oxymoron.

Worst Ex-President Ever Still Clueless

Trish

bushtapsbrainSpeaking in Republican-dominated Jacksonville, Florida had to be better than former Pres. George W. Bush’s last attempt to address crowds. That appearance, planned recently in Switzerland, was canceled after human rights advocates threatened to arrest Bush when his plane touched down.

By contrast, Jacksonvillians gave standing ovations to the former chief executive, whose rein included two invasions, economic collapse, the worst handling of the worst natural disaster in our country’s history, and other low points too numerous and painful to recall. But Bush showed in the speech, in which reporter Karen Brune Mathis noted he “referred frequently to his recently published autobiography, ‘Decision Points,'” that he still doesn’t get it.

Bush, who was known as the most incurious person to ever hold the office now says, “I’m a content guy”

Bush said that his core principles include the belief that freedom should be universal and is the “gift of almighty God.”

“Freedom will lead to the peace that we want,” he said. “Freedom was the cornerstone of my policy agenda.”

Reality check: Bush and his vice president, Dick Cheney, presided over passage of the Patriot Act, an omnibus piece of legislation that allowed formerly illegal searches and seizures, secret wiretapping of American citizens, and – showing no intrusion was too minor – called for libraries to turn over records of people reading about Islam.

Bush showed his puffed up ego has grown since leaving office.

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Charlie on Hurricane Preparedness

Buck Banks

Yesterday was Opening Day of the 2009 Atlantic hurricane season. To mark the day, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist offered up this video in which he’s certainly looking tanned and, dare we say it, senatorial.

Let’s see, canned goods, batteries, radio, cellphone — yep, I s’pose I’m ready for a “safe hurricane season,” Charlie. Thanks!

My favorite part is the Web site floridadisaster.org, which I find ironic on many levels.