Big Dogs House

We Are From the Government, and We Are Here To Help

May 20, 2009 Political

What a lie. The government never helps- oh that is not to say they do not at times try, feebly- but mostly all they ever manage to do is salt the ground with so many rules and regs that nothing will ever work. Every disaster we have had in the last ten years at least has been aggravated negatively by the Federal Government.
Contrary to what you might wish to believe, they are last in, and first to leave. You could see that in Hurricanes Rita and Katrina. Now you can see it in their handling of Ike.

Katrina was a wake up call for FEMA, but in fairness, much of the blame could be laid at the feet of the Mayor of New Orleans, and Governor of Louisiana, who really messed things up by not asking the Feds in soon enough. Not everyone knows that you have to invite the feds into your state to take control of a situation, courtesy of the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution, but this is so, and so FEMA was delayed even more than normal.

Then Rita struck the same year, and while you might think that since FEMA was already in the area, they might be quicker in their response, oh no- that was not the case.

Now fast- forward to Hurricane Ike, in 2008- this was the Hurricane whose Eyewall went literally over my house at 6:00 in the morning with 100 mph winds, and all these nice little mini- tornados these storms produce. I had to cut my way out of the driveway when the storm had passed, which was no piece of cake if you have arthritis and two foot thick pine trees. I had a tallow tree that fell on our house, but we were spared major damage. We were extremely lucky, and I am the first to say this.

Fema took three days to get any ice, or food out to anyone near me. I had prepared, having been a life- long resident of Texas and veteran of Hurricanes my whole life, and I pretty much have no use for the Feds- they are always a day late and a dollar short, so I had ice chests, propane stove, and a horse trough full of water I had stored and tarped. Others were not so prepared, and particularly on the coast, where everything was literally scraped clean of any living thing, FEMA just looked at the devastation, and thought well, there’s no one here- why are we?

It has taken us in Texas a year, almost, to begin to put our lives back together, but still, we are much more fortunate than Louisiana, who still today is relying on the Federal government to give them back their lives, and that’s not going to happen. It is, #1- not the business of the government (you have to work at it yourself also), and #2-when the government does try to help, they most often get it wrong, because they have no clue how people live, or what people need.

Trailers to live in after Katrina did not arrive until three months or more after the event. You might think the Federal government could have done better by the time Ike came around, but in some cases, trailers didn’t arrive for four months, and now, before people can rebuild their own homes, Fema wants to take the trailers away. And yet we still have people living rent- free in apartments four years after Katrina. There is no logic to the government.

So it appears that Texans get penalized for being more prepared and able to withstand a storm that could be seen as coming for a week or more, but the people of New Orleans are still treated as helpless babies all because they didn’t do the sensible thing and flee when they had the chance. Oh, that’s right, the Mayor of a city that sits 12 feet BELOW sea level didn’t see a reason to evacuate- now THERE’S a sensible man. He let buses that could have evacuated most of the people sit underwater, and be ruined, while people had to cut themselves out of their attics. Wonderful. While his people were floating on the floodwaters, Mayor Nagin was living in Dallas, high and dry. That’s right- he came to Texas.

Now I said that to say this- if you are expecting the Federal government to bail you out, or to fix anything, make the economy better, or even do ANYTHING competent, you will be waiting a long time. Between the natural tendency of bureaucracy to do as little as possible, to the infighting between the various agencies as to who has the biggest, well, bureaucracy- you are better off doing for yourself, because I, and most everyone on the Gulf Coast, know that the Federal government is pretty well useless, and hasn’t gotten any better with this new iteration of “leaders”.

I mean, now we REALLY don’t have the money to help our people- just ask anyone in California.

Of course, they are their own disaster.

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Tags: disaster, fema, incompetence, self reliance

What Happens In Vegas Is Only For The Feds

Feb 13, 2009 Political

Barack Obama is in a bit of hot water with Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman after the sainted one leveled his scorn at companies that have received taxpayer bailout money taking their employees to Las Vegas for business meetings. Goodman said it makes no sense for them to cancel and move the meeting to San Francisco based on what Obama said.

I have to agree that it makes no sense to force a company to cancel a meeting because it is a waste of money if they are only moving to another location.

I imagine that Obama was upset that taxpayer money was wasted on a meeting in Las Vegas. He had to make an example of the companies so that people would understand that he would not allow their money to be wasted.

The only problem with that is that about 220 of his employees will be going to Vegas for a meeting in May and the entire trip will be paid for by taxpayers. In these tough times it is inconceivable that taxpayer money would be used so that employees can go to Vegas for a meeting. All this at a time when record amounts of money are being borrowed to waste on a recession and while people are losing their jobs.

The employees in question are those who work for FEMA, the much maligned organization that made a cursory visit to Kentucky during the recent ice storms that killed about 50 and left half a million or so without power in the dead of winter.

Can anyone, even Dr. Joan maybe, explain how it is bad for businesses that have received taxpayer money to go to Vegas for their meetings but not bad for taxpayer money to pay for government employees to go there? Couldn’t FEMA use those modern methods of communication that Obama is all in favor of to have a virtual meeting? VTC, web collaboration, stuff like that.

I bet it would save a bunch of taxpayer money and demonstrate that the Obama government is no better than the private businesses he chooses to scold. It would also show that he wants to be as good a steward with our money as he expects the bailout recipients to be.

Then again, if that were the case he wouldn’t be spending a TRILLION dollars of money we do not have. It is the cost of the plan plus the interest that makes it over a TRILLION dollars. Just wanted to point that out to those who don’t understand a budget, financing, and business.

Source:
Federal Times

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Tags: business, fema, las vegas, Obama, taxpayer

Obama’s Katrina Is In Kentucky

Feb 1, 2009 Political

The state of Kentucky has a lot of people without power and without basic supplies. 42 people have died as a result of the ice storms that hit the middle part of the Unites States this past week. The storms hit about five days ago and even though people are dying, Obama’s FEMA is nowhere to be found.

Yep, it has been five days and Barack Obama has not sent FEMA in to rescue people. He has not sent in generators so that people could have power and he has not sent in water so people would not have to get it from the creeks. Obama has not sent FEMA to the region and by all accounts Obama has not done a thing to help.

Barack Obama must hate white people.

When hurricane Katrina hit the Democrats used the disaster to gain political traction. They made claims that Bush was too slow to respond, that he hated black people, that his response was slow because most of those affected were black, that he did not do enough and he did nothing quickly enough. This played out over and over as the MSM made victims of people who refused to leave town before the storm hit. We all watched on TV as people were rescued from roofs because they refused to leave town. We also watched as people who were so accustomed to government providing for them stood in water looking around for help and unable to walk themselves to the nearby dry land.

To this day the left mentions Katrina and discusses the failure as a black mark on the Bush administration even though the majority of the blame belonged on the Democratic governor of the state and the Democratic mayor of New Orleans. Bush and FEMA got most of the blame because it was politically good for the Democrats and their media wing played right along.

I am willing to bet that the media are not as hard on Obama with regard to Kentucky as they were on Bush with New Orleans. Obama has neglected the people of Kentucky and there are no media around to tell the story like when Katrina hit. Then it was wall to wall with all the big names lining up to bash Bush over his mishandling of the hurricane response.

The media are not in Kentucky with wall to wall coverage about people dying in the cold while Obama sits in his extremely warm and toasty Oval Office. No media to provide constant coverage of FEMA and its terrible response because Obama has not deployed FEMA so there is no response. Kentucky has some FEMA folks in the Emergency Operations Center but that is not going to help much.

I guess the media are ignoring this because there are not a bunch of poor black folks sitting on roofs crying about their fate. There is no Republican president to hammer over the issue.

Instead they have a black president who obviously hates white people in red states and he is showing his hatred by not sending in FEMA and by not helping. He has not even flown into the area to survey the damage. It is cold there and he is from Hawaii you know. Maybe he will consider gracing those people with his presence but only after he has his Superbowl party. If it were Bush the left would be having fits.

Maybe he can take Al Gore with him to discuss global warming as the cause…

Of course the folks in Kentucky say it would be nice to have the resources of FEMA but they can get along without the feds helping.

“I’m not saying we can’t handle it,” Smith said. “We’re handling it. But it [FEMA help] sure would have made life a lot easier.” My Way News

Maybe, in the aftermath of Katrina where people complained about sole source contracts, the feds are out soliciting bids to help in Kentucky. Anyone familiar with the government bidding process already knows it will be Summer and all the people in Kentucky will be past this incident before the government approves anything.

But at least there will be none of those dastardly no bid contracts that drive liberals mad (unless Bill Clinton is issuing them).

Blue State: We need help, send Greyhound buses, the gubmint did not help. Where’s my $5000 debit card so I can get liquor and go to the nudie bar?

Red State: We can manage. It would have been a lot easier with their help but we will make it.

The last time I wrote about New Orleans I got over a hundred comments from people who live there all sniveling and blaming their woes on the government. I never saw where one took any responsibility or said that local government shared any of it. It was all the Corps of Engineers and Bush. I don’t imagine anything has changed so they still feel that way. But at least now they know that their messiah Obama hates white people and the folks in Kentucky are not getting FEMA help. Maybe, just maybe the folks in NO can watch and learn how people do things when they have to rough it for a while…

Sources:
My Way News
Jammie Wearing Fool
American Thinker
Yahoo News

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Tags: fema, ice storm, katrina, kentucky, new orleans, Obama, white people

Why No Katrina Stories From Iowa?

Jun 13, 2008 Political

There is terrible flooding in Cedar Rapids Iowa and Des Moines is under a voluntary evacuation order as rivers swell and rise to the tops of levees. Cedar Rapids is under water and 15 people have died as a result of the flooding. Of course this story has been in the news but I can’t help but wondering where all the network trailers are. I can’t help wondering where FEMA is and where are all the protesters demonstrating against perceived government inaction on this one?

Also, where are all the dead bodies floating around while hoodlums roam the streets shooting at people and looting stores?

What is it about this storm that is at least as bad, if not worse, than Katrina that has left us without stories of devastation caused by the government’s failure to swoop in and help people? Why don’t we have music stars on TV holding a telethon to raise money while they proclaim that George Bush hates white people?

Why is it that teen aged boys, members of the Boy Scouts, were able to respond immediately to render first aid to the injured and dig out those trapped in the rubble when adults in New Orleans seemed incapable of helping themselves?

Perhaps this goes back to the thoughts I had about dependence on government. Those in New Orleans have ridden the back of government programs for so long they did not know how to care for themselves. The leadership they needed from state and local politicians was non existent with the governor crying and the mayor lying in the fetal position sucking his thumb on the upper floors of a hotel. The people were ill prepared because their leadership was ill prepared.

Certainly there was blame at the federal level and things could have run more smoothly but there is no battalion of federal employees traipsing around Iowa and they seem to be surviving.

It all comes down to people taking responsibility for one’s own life and helping others in need.

My prayers are with those folks in Iowa affected by this terrible storm. Thanks goodness they had the ability to fend for themselves or the death toll could have been much higher.

Source 1
Source 2
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Tags: cedar rapids, fema, floods, iowa, katrina, new orleans