Promoted by Steven D. Is there nothing Bush won’t do to screw over Democrats, no matter how much suffering he causes?
Bush and FEMA under David Paulison are playing political favorites again.
Any state with a Dem governor is going to get shafted when it comes to emergency aid.
Said the Springdale Morning News yesterday:
Alabama is a Republican state. Arkansas is a Democratic state. But this White House wouldn’t dare distinguish among human suffering by whether a state was red or blue. Would it?
One can only wonder if Mike Huckabee might have had more luck with this current regime or whether Mike Beebe would be having better luck if we could fast-forward a couple of years to the Obama or Clinton administration.
At this writing, 11 days after the Dumas tornado, all we know is that Alabama got an affirmative answer in two days while Arkansas has yet to receive any answer at all.
Now, people probably know a bit about how New Orleanians felt like in late August and early September 2005.
Suckers.
Alabama, Florida and Georgia, all hit by tornadoes, seem to be getting assistance and have been declared Federal disaster areas, despite the fact that FEMA had decided to deny Federal assistance to any states hit by tornadoes on Christmas Day, 2006.
All these states have Repub governors.
Arkansas doesn’t. FEMA says the state has a surplus and can take care of its own.
Beebe says that all funds for state emergency aid have been used, and that Federal assistance is warranted.
Meanwhile FEMA is attempting to sell off 60,000 trailers–including 8,000 sitting at the municipal airport in Hope, Arkanasas–when housing is still at a premium in New Orleans.
The stricken in Arkansas are only three hours from having a home brought to them. But FEMA isn’t letting the citizens of Arkansas have them.
Or Katrina evacuees and survivors–who could come home to or stay in New Orleans–if they wanted.
Update [2007-3-8 21:15:9 by blksista]:
See also this Raw Story account with a CNN story embedded.
I’ve been monitoring this thing from the get-go.
Bush goes for a photo-op near that high school in Bam that was flattened, while Arkansas doesn’t even get an effing phone call.
Plus they are selling off those trailers!
How many people could use them in New Orleans, Mississippi and Arkansas?
Corrupt m-fs…
I do not know where to begin. And why was everyone forced into Texas and not in Arkansas in the first place? And why did those trailors sit at Hope, Arkansas, for months? Excuse me while I break a few objects.
Clinton’s hometown.
Like the town had anything to do with Clinton spending his youth there.
exactly
exactly
how audacious!
It’s on MSM, NBC right now. They are selling them off at pennies on the dollar. Like I said that’s two, two stock “crashes” and nothing says capitalism quite like Enterprise.
Lord, are you telling me to tack up my Apocalyptic horse?
As much as hurricanes and tornadoes concern, too bad that not every year is an election year. Presidential photo-ups at least make some things moving. (Remember Florida in the 2004 season?)
The Bush doctrine has always been vengeance. Saddam wanted to kill his daddy, Arkansas produced the man who beat him, Louisiana just keeps making george look bad.
“I’m still knitting” – GWB as Madame DeFarge
Well, actually the Morning News is wrong. It is fairly easy to tell how Huckabee would have fared. All you have to do is look back less than a year to April, 2006, when a tornado struck the small, mostly white town of Wynne in northeastern Arkansas. Less than a dozen structures were destroyed and less than 20 more were damaged.
Nevertheless, before then-governor Huckabee could make the 40-min. flight to tour the damage, FEMA trailers were on their way from Hope, which is nearly 300 miles away (Hope is about 70 miles from Dumas). How do I know? I was there. I passed the FEMA trailers on I-40 and arrived in Wynne before Huckabee. By noon the next day, the trailers were set up and FEMA had declared Wynne and Cross County a disaster area, something they are refusing to do for Dumas and Desha County.
I have little doubt that a lot of the difference is because Arkansas elected a Democrat as governor in November and that both of its Senators and all but one representative are Democrats. But I am more that a little suspicious that the mostly black, mostly poor residents of Dumas (and Desha County, one of the 20 poorest counties in the U.S.) somehow merit less attention and concern from shrubCo. than the mostly white, relatively affluent citizens Cross County.