FEMA

Rand Paul Goes Whacko On Senate Floor: Unnecessary Filibuster!

Ronald 10 Comments

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul held up the confirmation of John Brennan for more than 13 hours on the Senate floor yesterday, concerned about the thought that, somehow, Barack Obama intended to use drones against non combat Americans on American soil.

Rand Paul was engaged in pure grandstanding, and it led to Senators John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina condemning their Republican colleague on the Senate floor today!

By his filibuster, Paul only encouraged the conspiracy theorists who see FEMA helicopters about to take over the skies, arrest people who have guns, and intern large numbers of Americans in “concentration camps”, all part of the belief that our President is trying to become a dictator.

This crazy fear and hate mongering has led to more death threats against our first African American President than any other President, and we now know that there are eight times the number of right wing hate groups in 2013, as compared to 2008, over 1,300 in number!

Rand Paul and his libertarian views are dangerous, because libertarians see the federal government as the enemy, and all it does is promote militia group and “Patriot” group activities and threats against the “evil’ federal government. It is paranoia gone mad!

The only good that came out of this was that Attorney General Eric Holder came out with a clear cut statement that the President had declared that, under no circumstances, would the federal government ever use drones against non combat Americans on American soil. As if anyone who has common sense and rational thinking would think otherwise!

BIG Government IS Essential In The 21st Century In Third Largest Nation On Earth!

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The tragedy of Hurricane Sandy has brought to the forefront a reality that many Republicans and conservatives have refused to recognize—BIG government IS essential in the 21st century in the third largest nation on earth, and we cannot go back to the past concept of small government, and leaving everything to Mitt Romney’s concept of privatization!

We are a nation of 315 million people and counting, and this is very different than when America was a nation of 4 million in 1790; or 31 million in 1860; or 125 million in 1930; or 200 million in 1970!

The states have proved over and over again that they are incapable of handling the issues and problems of their population, without assistance from the federal government.

It is time to say that states rights is dead, in the sense that states cannot be allowed to stand in the way of progress, cannot be allowed to dictate differing policies that affect the American people in a detrimental way!

The Civil War was fought over states rights, as one of the issues, and we have had problems with states rights advocates ever since, who choose to use state power to promote racism, discrimination, and prejudice. The time for state leaders to understand that such policies are no longer acceptable is now, at a time when states fully understand that it is the national government and its bureaucrats who are the only ones who can be relied on to deal with man made or natural crises.

The only thing that is obvious is that the BEST people must be hired to run federal agencies that deal with crisis, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and that we must have Presidents who realize the need to prioritize such activities, rather than those, such as George W. Bush, himself incompetent, who allowed FEMA to fail to react properly to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, or his dad, George H. W. Bush, who failed to react properly to Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

This is proof that what we need in the Presidency is a person who understands the role and need for national government, not someone such as Mitt Romney, who only thinks of money and privatization every day of his life, and does not give a damn about ordinary people and the struggles they face every day of their lives!

We need a leader, such as Barack Obama, who has empathy and compassion and concern, not a plutocrat, who is only concerned about the power of the Presidency, and wants to bring us back to the Gilded Age, when we were a nation of 50 million people!

The need for government has been so well displayed now, that for anyone to advocate small government, and returning power to the corrupt state and local governments, or to privatization, needs to be repudiated in as strong a manner as possible!

Crisis Leadership: FEMA, Mitt Romney, And Partisanship Displayed

Ronald 5 Comments

This disastrous Hurricane Sandy has demonstrated already the difference in leadership of President Barack Obama and his Republican Presidential opponent, Mitt Romney.

Obama has conducted himself fabulously, and has been praised by Republican Governor Chris Christie for his leadership in the crisis. He has demonstrated a steady, calm, cool hand, as he always has in every tough moment of his Presidency, including the operation to eliminate Osama Bin Laden.

Meanwhile, we are reminded that Mitt Romney has advocated getting rid of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and farming its operations back to the state and local governments, and even promoting privatizing its activities. He constantly said this during the Republican primary campaign, as he rushed to please the far right wing of his Republican Party.

Now he is caught in a bind, and has avoided direct comment about the situation caused by Hurricane Sandy.

But he has also, this quickly, shown partisanship, instead of bipartisanship, by calling and consulting with Republican Governors Chris Christie of New Jersey, and Bob Mc’Donnell of Virginia, but NOT calling and consulting with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, and Delaware Governor Jack Markell, all Democrats.

This is evidence, and not good, that shows that Mitt Romney would NOT be a good crisis President, and would play political games, similar to what George W. Bush did with Hurricane Katrina, and the Democratic Mayor and Democratic Governor of Louisiana, and thus giving a bad image to FEMA, which had been effective before Bush, and is again under Obama!

FEMA can be effective IF we have the right crisis President, and the proper people put into the agency to operate it efficiently. And if there is a need to fund more money for FEMA, by raising taxes, so be it, as we cannot afford to leave the management of a natural or man made disaster to 50 state governors alone, and certainly NOT to private companies, whose only purpose is to maximize profits at the expense of their employees and the general public!

The True Nature Of Republican Anarchism Reveals Itself!

Ronald 4 Comments

The Republican Party has moved so far to the Right that the list of outrageous views and statements that can be compiled gets worse all of the time! There seems to be no limit to their nastiness, selfishness, mean spiritedness, and anarchistic statements against government!

Witness the following in no special order:

Florida Senator Marco Rubio, in a speech at the Ronald Reagan Library in California, condemns the entire New Deal and Great Society, saying Social Security and Medicare have been a total failure! He seems to suggest that such parts of the social safety net should be phased out, and demonstrates no recognition of how these programs have made old age much more dignified over the past 50-80 years, plus offering assistance to widows, children, and the disabled!

Virginia Congressman and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Wisconsin Congressman and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan say that earthquake and hurricane relief will be dealt with, but that equivalent budget cuts will have to be arranged to cover those costs! This will affect average Americans and cause more joblessness, and shows absolutely no concern about the economic effect on the long range future of the nation!

Texas Congressman Ron Paul, running for President, says that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) should not exist and is unnecessary, as the states and local governments can handle natural disaster, describing that as the response in past storms in Texas decades ago! He conveniently forgets or is ignorant of the fact that the worst hurricane in history, in Galveston, Texas, part of his district, experienced 6,000-12,000 dead in the year 1900, because of lack of awareness and response to that hurricane! Paul wants to go back a century, and what he is calling for is anarchism of the worst kind, such hatred of national government that he would leave recovery to states, particularly in the Gulf area, which historically have had just about the worst concern and commitment to their citizens, particularly the poor who are always more often the victims of natural disasters!

There will be more outrageous statements and criticisms of the federal government on the role they should play regarding the social safety net, and the reaction to natural disasters. We are living through a time of lunacy and insanity, of anarchism just as dangerous as any Islamic terrorist could ever present to our nation!

And sadly, it is also some Christian “terrorists”, just as dangerous to our nation, who are claiming that these natural disasters visiting the Atlantic Coast are due to gay marriage and abortion and having a black President! And the hatred prevalent at some church services conducted by these lunatic pastors against Barack Obama is terrifying! Jesus Christ has been totally distorted in his message of compassion and love by these reckless, hate mongering pastors who manipulate gullible followers in a dangerous, inciting manner!

We are in a very dangerous political climate that makes one wonder about the stability of the American republic!