Security?
I was going to write a bit about Al Gore's wonderful and profoundly disturbing An Inconvenient Truth, as I bought the book last night and am about halfway through (no idea when the movie will hit Toronto).
But then I read this, and I couldn't let it pass without comment.
Homeland Security, the vast domestic safety group with the vaguely national socialist name, has slashed funding to, essentially, every place that may need defending in order to increase payments to places that will not, in fact, ever be targeted. It's the perfect Republican strategy.
It's almost funny. They're slashing their budgets for New York and Washington by over 40%. You know - those remote and inconsequential places that the 9-11 terrorists actually hit.
And get this:
New York's grant plummeted from about $207 million to $124 million. A DHS risk scorecard for the city asserted that the home of the Empire State Building and the Brooklyn Bridge has "zero" national monuments or icons.
Just an absolutely stunning display of warped non-reality acting as policy.
How did they get there? Well, since the payments have always been skewed away from the Northeast and other areas too smart to vote Republican, DHS changed their distribution rules.
Homeland Security's grant programs have drawn criticism from cities both large and small; many have felt slighted by what they maintained was a haphazard and unfair distribution plan. This year's round of grants was supposed to ensure that enough money goes to areas at highest risk of terrorist attack by employing risk scores, effectiveness tests and 17 "peer review" panels consisting of homeland security professionals from 47 states.
Obviously, these panels were a complete failure. So who was on them? What was their methodology?
The department refused to release the names of panel members or other details about the review boards.
Sorry, I was thinking for a moment that we were discussing Old America, the place where people were accountable for their mistakes and where citizens had a right to know what their government was doing.
And here we are in our Republican utopia. All decisions are either stupid or political or both. The 'war on terror' is there to generate votes, not to actually be fought in any way. New York can go suck an egg.
The really amazing thing is that the Republicans never run out of stupid people to put in vital jobs of great responsibility. I mean, they never even accidentally hire smart people. They are so ideologically married to stupidity in its many forms that they've generated advanced warning systems to prevent any rational person from joining their ranks.
How else could they put together a group of 'experts' who would call for cuts to New York and Washington? Who else would say that there are "zero national icons or monuments" in New York City? What sort of brain damage would a person need to suffer before they signed on to that?
And yet, there is no doubt that the Rubber Stamp Congress will soon give it all the big okey-dokey.
Do you feel safer yet?
But then I read this, and I couldn't let it pass without comment.
Homeland Security, the vast domestic safety group with the vaguely national socialist name, has slashed funding to, essentially, every place that may need defending in order to increase payments to places that will not, in fact, ever be targeted. It's the perfect Republican strategy.
It's almost funny. They're slashing their budgets for New York and Washington by over 40%. You know - those remote and inconsequential places that the 9-11 terrorists actually hit.
And get this:
New York's grant plummeted from about $207 million to $124 million. A DHS risk scorecard for the city asserted that the home of the Empire State Building and the Brooklyn Bridge has "zero" national monuments or icons.
Just an absolutely stunning display of warped non-reality acting as policy.
How did they get there? Well, since the payments have always been skewed away from the Northeast and other areas too smart to vote Republican, DHS changed their distribution rules.
Homeland Security's grant programs have drawn criticism from cities both large and small; many have felt slighted by what they maintained was a haphazard and unfair distribution plan. This year's round of grants was supposed to ensure that enough money goes to areas at highest risk of terrorist attack by employing risk scores, effectiveness tests and 17 "peer review" panels consisting of homeland security professionals from 47 states.
Obviously, these panels were a complete failure. So who was on them? What was their methodology?
The department refused to release the names of panel members or other details about the review boards.
Sorry, I was thinking for a moment that we were discussing Old America, the place where people were accountable for their mistakes and where citizens had a right to know what their government was doing.
And here we are in our Republican utopia. All decisions are either stupid or political or both. The 'war on terror' is there to generate votes, not to actually be fought in any way. New York can go suck an egg.
The really amazing thing is that the Republicans never run out of stupid people to put in vital jobs of great responsibility. I mean, they never even accidentally hire smart people. They are so ideologically married to stupidity in its many forms that they've generated advanced warning systems to prevent any rational person from joining their ranks.
How else could they put together a group of 'experts' who would call for cuts to New York and Washington? Who else would say that there are "zero national icons or monuments" in New York City? What sort of brain damage would a person need to suffer before they signed on to that?
And yet, there is no doubt that the Rubber Stamp Congress will soon give it all the big okey-dokey.
Do you feel safer yet?
posted by fiduciary at 7:42 AM
1 Comments:
I hope this gets to you, because I am sooo frustrated in not being able to nod and agree with you in person!! You are so right and articulate in voicing our frustration at what is happening to our country. Your inability to comprehend what they are doing, now with cutting NYC funding for security, is shared. What is the most crucial crime during all of this is how the media has been hijacked...and Bill Clinton opened the door in his time, and now there is total lack of fairness in the media, a la the Fairness Doctrine.I do wonder about those 'angry white guys' and why they feel that way, in that they have been running things for a 'little' while?// (like Uncle Mike, with whom I am now talking to!) LOVE mommmmmm
Post a Comment
<< Home