Never fails...

...to astonish me how Gov. Romney can do a backward flip with full twist & all his supporters do is give him straight 10s.  

He's on record advocating eliminating FEMA, turning it into a block-grant program for states to implement ~ OR ~ "even better" "send it back to the private sector" (his words

, not mine - clip is on youtube).  NOW, with Sandy barreling down on MY home, his campaign is horrified that anyone misunderstood his reply to John King during a primary debate - eliminate FEMA? Never!!!  Okaaaay - so what you were saying in the primary debate was that states would take the lead in disaster relief... No, better yet, private contractors (think Blackwater, Halliburton) would... No, FEMA would. Imagine the muddle!!!

...

What's goes to the heart of the utterly weird - that Mitt Romney wants to be president, yet seems to know precious little about how federal government is run. His campaign's statement - “Gov. Romney believes states should be in charge of emergency management in responding to storms & other natural disasters in their jurisdictions. As the first responders, states are in the best po

sition to aid affected individuals and communities, and to direct resources and assistance to where they are needed most. This includes help from the federal government and FEMA.”   HULLO!!!   

That's how it works right now! The president issued emergency declarations

in response

to requests from GOVERNORS for aid, allowing the states to make vital emergency purchases with full assurance they will be reimbursed.

But then, Gov. Romney seems to not have a clue what makes FEMA so important in time of natural disaster.  It's called EXPERIENCE.  Maybe if he'd had a daughter & they'd hired 

a bridal consultant to help with her wedding, then he might have something to compare it to - he & Ann wouldn't want one that was new to all the intricacies of a ceremony & reception, they'd want one with a 

track record of managing A LOT over the years.  

There have been times that FEMA rose to the occasion (& we never heard about all the agency did), there have been times - okay, one time - when it was almost criminal in its response, but ALL of the responses were fully documented & even Katrina taught the FEMA folks invaluable lessons.

NOAA in the Spotlight

here's a well-timed read (while we still have power) ~ hurricane sandy & and the waning finances of us meteorology.   

DIDJA know that, like pbs, the national oceanic & atmospheric administration (noaa) is in gop cross hairs for mega funding cuts?  (unlike defense, which always get the political testosterone flowing, meteorolgy is soooo unsexy to fund.)  

as folks in se pa keep checking for sandy updates, close your eyes & imagine an noaa reduced to mediocrity by hyped funding cuts.  if you're a member of  the house science, space & technology committee (like, say, paul broun or todd akin, jim sensenbrenner or dana rohrabacher), meteorology might feel like a no-brainer place to make some deep cuts.  

NEVER has their ballyhoo over cutting noaa seemed more short-sighted & less watchful of our safety, property & economic well being.

Ideal GOP Presidential Candidate

That would be Mitt Romney.  

Not because Gov. Romney won the nomination.  Because he so perfectly captures what, per no less that Grover Norquist, the party sought - someone who wouldn't aspire to be an old-fashioned Chief Executive & Commander in Chief, one who embodied those offices in one person, instead serving the nation as a vehicle for the House of Representatives to put through the conservative agenda they have sought so long.  

For that purpose, no one could be more ideal.

No problem with friends voting for Gov. Romney

i have absolutely no problem with friends who want to vote for gov. romney instead of president obama.  he has been perfectly clear what he will do as president, his running mate has been equally clear about the issues that are important to them.  gov. romney has been forthright refusing to release his tax returns (like very candidate before him, stretching back to his dad, save john mccain) because of the opportunity it would for the opposition to make political hay.  he changes positions from moderate to severe conservative and now back to moderate.  he puts corporations on equal footing with flesh & blood americans.  he's been very open, even when he has refused to be.

can't recall an election where the candidate has been more open about what to expect.  if that's what my friends want, then they know what they are getting into.

Like, duh!!

Raise your hands if you're surprised at reports that Karl Rove has close ties to Nathan Sproul - no one raised their hands??  Small wonder.  Mr. Sproul - who has been officially tarred with voter registration tampering - was hired by seven battleground states to help register votes. Among his companies' dirty tricks - changing the addresses of existing Democratic voters on registration forms so the validity of their registration might be challenged on Election Day.   Yet, affiliated companies are apparently still contracted with the GOP in no less than 30 states.

Per Salon.com, Karl Rove could be considered the father of the voter suppression movement that's engulfed GOP-dominated legislatures nationwide.  Bush's Brain learned long ago that charges of voter fraud are potent weapons in fighting for greater & greater voter suppression - that, incidentally, benefits the GOP.  

Karl Rove, working feverishly to swing the deal for the GOP, having close ties to a shady voter registration guy like Sproul??  Like - DUH!

Here's an interesting nugget - In Ohio (a battleground state if there ever was one!), the GOP Secretary of State, Jon Husted (veteran of the 2004 campaign with Rove), seems to be mounting a major push to limit voter turnout. "In addition to issuing a directive that forbids boards of elections from notifying voters about mistakes in absentee ballots. Ultimately, such decisions may well play a key role in determining the outcome of the election."  

Could there be a link...

...between the number of people in American prisons & the fact that there's a booming industry based on prison labor?

Naaaaaaaaaaaaah....

Stunned

Am frankly stunned at how many wonderful, utterly morally & ethically grounded, well-read, smart people I know who support & are voting for a man who's proven over & over & over that he has no semblance of inner core.  

It's not Citizens United or new voting laws that suppress the vote or big wigs & fat cats gaming everyone else or even that I fully believe this election was in the bag for Romney since Day 1 - what chills me to the bone is the number of people turning a blind eye to the utter vacuousness of his character, his lack of judgment & paucity of any personal core.

Glut

TOO much stuff & nonsense over the past month to keep up to date with it on a blog.  Most of it wasn't worth more than momentary space on FB.