Randi Rhodes: War on FEMA

It seems Hurricane Irene has passed—there is extensive damage, and it’s going to take a long time to repair all of it, but it could have been much worse... kind of like the Bush presidency. In New York City, Hurricane Irene did very little damage. In fact, it forced the cancellation of three performances of Broadway’s “Spiderman: Turn off the Dark,” which is considered something of a plus.

A lot of people have a problem with how the government provides disaster relief. Ron Paul, however, has a problem with the very fact that the government provides disaster relief at all. What is Ron Paul’s model for disaster relief? He says “We should be like 1900.” Wow. And I thought conservatives just looked back to 1900 for their model of what civil rights should look like. Hey, if we did things like we did back in 1900, we wouldn’t have to worry about restoring electricity to all those homes without power. Back in 1900, most homes didn’t have electricity.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie told people who were still on the beach as the storm was approaching “Get the hell off the beach.” Funny, “get the hell off the beach” is exactly what Chris Christie would hear, if he ever went down there and removed his shirt. But if Chris Christie was on the beach, concerned beachgoers would be trying to push him back into the ocean. Give people a little time to evacuate, Governor Christie. Remember, not everybody has a taxpayer-supplied helicopter to take them wherever they need to go.

Michele Bachmann is saying that Hurricane Irene and last week’s Virginia earthquake were wake-up calls from God. The earthquake was 5.8 on the Richter scale, or roughly what you get when you drop a bowling ball. If that was a wake-up call from God, it wasn’t a very urgent one. Evidently God is trying to wake us up very gently. Michele said “I don’t know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We’ve had an earthquake; we’ve had a hurricane. He said, ‘Are you going to start listening to me here?’” This from a woman who doesn’t know her husband is gay! Michele, God gave us gaydar for a reason.

Today’s Homework | Discuss