FEMA is the secretive X-Files agency that builds the Concentration Camps for American poors who will somehow be fattened up even more so the Space Monsters can have food and also get diabetes. But in tragic reality, FEMA is just this inept federal agency that makes sure shit goes very wrong whenever there’s a hurricane. And hurricanes often happen in America’s Dumbest State, Flordia, so that’s why Barack Obama picked some random FLA person to help flood America.
Craig Fugate, who oversees the daily tragic emergencies in Florida, will be Barack Obama’s new chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“I’m confident that Craig is the right person for the job and will ensure that the failures of the past are never repeated,” Obama said today. This was a funny reference to famous idiot Michael “Brownie” Brown, the actual retarded clown George W. Bush put in charge of FEMA for absolutely no known reason.
After the terrible destruction of New Orleans, Brown was fired because not enough black people drowned. He was replaced with a frightening ghoul named “Michael Chertoff,” who was dug up in Transylvania by earth demons.
Obama names Florida emergency boss as FEMA chief [Reuters]
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Damn. I was hoping for Andy Rooney.
And all this time it seemed that Jim Cramer, with his sound advice, would retain the FEMA post, as well as every other post. Well, damn. Fooled again.
It should be noted: http://thinkexist.com/quotes/craig_fugate/2.html
That is a list of Craig Fugate quotes. The man is a fundamentalist preparationalist. Good move, Barry.
I have to stand up for FEMA here, Ken. Recently, my area (WA state) was declared an emergency by the feds. My house fell in the river and within 3 short weeks, I had received about 40 (genuinely)concerned phone calls, 2 on site visits, a jillion mailed updates providing information, questionares, and evaluation forms, capped off by a check in the mail for the maximum grant amount (I’m too poor to get a loan, so says the SBA, making me eligible for the grant). The least I can do in gratitude is give them a shout out.
[re=257760]shortsshortsshorts[/re]: Does he communicate exclusively in haiku?
[re=257760]shortsshortsshorts[/re]: Holy hell. My eyes are OPENED.
I thought Geitner was appointed to oversee our disasters?
Screw the Swamp Thing (I’m sure Bob Allen will pay $20 for that) pic. Where’s the Adrienne Barbeau pic?
[re=257776]Custerwolf[/re]: That sounds awful. Truly.
Fugate was once in charge of the FL chapter of the International Arabian Horse Association (IAHA) so he’s legit.
“In the Keys, a lot of people are stubborn.”
HAH! …that would be high praise for a lot of Floridiots I know.
[re=257795]hockeymom[/re]: Thanks. At least my trailer (purchased with the FEMA money) is asbestos free!
“This was a funny reference to famous idiot Michael ‘Brownie’ Brown, the actual retarded clown George W. Bush put in charge of FEMA for absolutely no known reason”
Au contraire, moran! Dubya had a perfectly good reason for putting him in charge of FEMA. Brownie is a spineless butt kisser who raised a lot of money for America’s favorite rat-faced emperor. If that doesn’t scream “highly qualified,” I don’t know what does.
[re=257776]Custerwolf[/re]: Are you telling me tax money actually went for something finally useful? In the Bush years?? If I were a different man, I’d start demanding to see your birth certificate, etc.
Since you’re on Wonkette, I assume you didn’t use that FEMA credit card/check on LV Handbags?
Naturally they probably spent 10x more on “administration costs” before you got the $.
After the terrible destruction of New Orleans, Brown was fired…
Actually I don’t remember anyone in the Dubya administration ever being fired for wrongdoing or incompetence. They all resigned. Scooter Libby, Gonzales, Brown, Rumsfeld, Rove — not a damn one of the shit-for-brains criminals in the previous administration was ever fired.
[re=257781]StephanieInCA[/re]: He is the Haiku guru of safety and preparedness.
Florida is America’s Dumbest State? There’s room for debate here…
I came late to this thread, but I couldn’t help mentioning that “Fugate” means “Flee!” in Latin.
[re=257776]Custerwolf[/re]: They mailed you updates after your house washed away?
[re=257816]Bruno[/re]: Hell no! This just happened in January of this year.
[re=257776]Custerwolf[/re]: God, I know this is going to sound callous, but I hope you’re not one of those idiots that keeps rebuilding in the Skagit or Columbia flood zones that get washed away every 4 or five years. Please tell me you’re a renter, or just moved here or something.
______
Anyhoo, I hope hurricane season comes up soon, I want to be the first one to say, “Heckuva job, ‘Fugie’!”
[re=257828]pondscum[/re]: I get my mail from a PO Box.
Fugate? FUGATE?!!! Talk about a name custom-made for scandal.
[re=257834]Custerwolf[/re]: I was hoping… Nice to hear someone was actually helpful.
[re=257823]medievalist[/re]: Tempest Fugate, maybe?
Guys, if you’re going to use a “Swamp Thing” cover, can you use the awesome Allan Moore/John Totelben version, or perhaps the Berni Wrightson original? Nobody really cares about this stuff but me, but I’m really self-centered so I thought I’d bring it up.
[re=257833]Lascauxcaveman[/re]: Amen brother! I even told the FEMA inspector I have no pity for anyone who builds next to a river and then whines when the river does what rivers do. My place was built in 59 and the river (the Wallace, go figure) was nowhere near it at that time. It ate nearly 40 feet of bank (upon which my house was perched)during the floods of November and January, also taking out our well (good thing we have a river nearby). We’ll rebuild MUCH farther back of course…
[re=257776]Custerwolf[/re]: Oh, dudes. Were you up north or on the I-5 corridor on the way to Portland? Sorry to hear that you lost your house, and glad they gave you teh monies.
[re=257833]Lascauxcaveman[/re]: There’s a Columbia flood zone? I grew up in Wenatchee, and it was always the Wenatchee flooding, not the Columbia.
[re=257776]Custerwolf[/re]: I don’t think that promptly helping people in Washington state answers the concern that FEMA responds better to important communities (white people who vote red or at least purple).
Having said that, I’m sincerely glad you got what you needed, Clusterwolf; at tax time it helps to know a few pennies went for my priorities.
[re=257847]Custerwolf[/re]:
Sorry about that: I fixed the “fuck” but missed the “Cluster.” And no, it was not an editorial comment but simple profane proclivity
[re=257847]Custerwolf[/re]: So the river is devouring your land? Yikes! Do you have logging going on upstream or what?
Also, there are way too many fellow Washingtonians on this thread. Shouldn’t we be working?
[re=257821]BillyClubb[/re]: There are a lot of places dumber than Florida. Mr. Layne is just jealous because he lives in California and their oranges suck.
[re=257848]AnnieGetYourFun[/re]: Are you kidding? Those pix of I-5 underwater were near Kelso/Longview. That’s either the Columbia or some tributary that feeds it.
Haven’t you ever made the drive from SEA to PDX? That’s the Columbia River you can spit in if you roll down your passenger window, heading south.
[re=257866]Lascauxcaveman[/re]: Thanks!Actually most of the folks I spoke to on the phone we’re from back east. the only WA dude was the inspector. Here’s my place:
http://i389.photobucket.com/albums/oo336/brontie2/0109.jpg
I’ll believe in a FEMA that helps the blacks/poors when I see it.
[re=257874]exdixie[/re]: How on earth would someone on the phone know if I were black? Or poor for that matter (which I am)?
That first pic I posted was early in the day….here’s what happened to poor blue bike later on….it’s cemented into the river bed – couldn’t budge it.
http://i389.photobucket.com/albums/oo336/brontie2/bike.jpg
[re=257866]Lascauxcaveman[/re]: That was the Chehalis River. It empties into Gray’s Harbor and thence into the ocean. Weyerhaeuser is so busy cutting down every tree in sight in the watershed that there is nothing to hold the mud and water. Bad storms become worse. Old story.
I would also like to say that FEMA has been very quick to help public drinking water systems in Oregon (where I work) when storms and floods wipe out part of their facilities. Maybe we have a better group in our FEMA district than there is in the South. Shocking!
I figured Sanjay Gupta would get this one too. … oh by the way Where the Fuck is Sanjay Gupta?
[re=257776]Custerwolf[/re]: Fact is, there are a lot of gummint employees who care, work hard, do a good job. Snarkproof! But what fun is that?
I keep looking for a “Rock Me Like a Hurricane” joke but I’m tired and sober and it’s just not happening.
[re=257891]V572625694[/re]: Giving due credit lends legitimacy to the snark.
[re=257864]Mad Farmer Manifest[/re]: No logging (we’re adjacent to a state park – they just decimate the surrounding areas), the river, however, took out more than a dozen trees upriver and sent them our way. It really was a phenomenal thing to watch 50 foot trees blast by the house like toothpicks.
should’ve used the Toxic Avenger.
[re=257855]peachgirl[/re]: You’re a peach – I actually asked a FEMA worker on the phone what exactly I had done to deserve the check they had sent me – and he said “you paid your taxes.” Funny how that works – and yes, there should be a way for folks to actually see when their tax money does some good.
“For absolutely no reason” may not be correct. Bush put Brown in charge because he was a politically loyal incompetent who knew and knows nothing about disaster relief. He intentionally gutted programs that he disagreed with or felt were not the responsibility of the federal government, and placed men and women at the head of those agencies who openly despised their new departments. John Bolton, the UN-hater, as Ambassador to the UN is a classic example. The same thing was done to the Department of Labor, the EPA, the BLM, the BIA and a dozen other public trust institutions.
Ugh, the man’s been gone for six weeks now and the memory still fills me with bile and hate. I think its too much to hope for him to be Extraordinarily Rendered, huh?
[re=257882]Custerwolf[/re]: The person on the phone with you was just some poor schmuck. The person in charge is the one who decides whether the situation is serious enough to warrant paying overtime, expanding staff, and maybe renting some damn trucks. Over time I’ve noticed that the situation is considered serious differently depending on where it happens. Take the Mississippi, for example: farther north means more serious. Much farther north, much more serious. It’s simple.
WTF? This guy wouldn’t know a gelding from a stallion, nor a Thoroughbred from a Morgan. How the hell is he qualified to run FEMA?
Flordia is the most beautiful word I have ever heard. I will call it Flordia from now on.
[re=257952]peachgirl[/re]: True enough, but having suffered through this, what helped the most was having a feeling that someone actually gave a shit. We had friends helping get all our shit out of the house before it fell in (in the pic, my living room, bedroom and bathroom are already gone), so we were covered there. Also, knowing that FEMA had to answer to the Obama, rather than the Bush, administration helped. I could have done without the money and lived in a trailer (I’d already bought it, FEMA reimbursed me) on my property for the next 10 years and been fine. The fact is, even though it sounds corny, I felt like my government actually gave a shit about me. I’ve never had that good of service or that great of an attitude from the private sector – so in that sense I guess I kind of resent them being called schmucks. They were articulate and interested people. What would save taxpayers even more money is people taking an active interest in how their government’s services actually work – because they really didn’t need to hold my hand quite so much every step of the way, but you know damned well, had they not – someone would have complained.
[re=257961]Red Zeppelin[/re]: Win.
[re=257864]Mad Farmer Manifest[/re]: I am. At work, that is.
[re=257977]Custerwolf[/re]: We working-and-tax-paying schmucks use the word with each other all the time and don’t mean anything by it. It helps us feel powerful and who knows, maybe it takes some of the venom out.
In hindsight, What I meant was schlmazel. Schmuck is just more fun to type.
[re=257952]peachgirl[/re]: I’ve been thinking about what you wrote. If I recall correctly, the chain of events happens something like this: the governor declares certain counties (or the entire state) in a state of emergency – that happens because a certain dollar figure of damage occurs, or will be needed to prevent further hardship. It is only after that they can ask FEMA to have a look see and evaluate (on site) the damages. Then, at that point FEMA either says, “too bad losers” or “here’s a check, have a nice day.” So why do you suppose it’s so different in the south?
[re=258020]peachgirl[/re]: Ahhh…..I knew you were too nice!
[re=258016]L Urchin[/re]: And clearly working hard…
[re=258027]Custerwolf[/re]: I think you missed a step in the process. As a disaster develops, FEMA is supposed to monitor the situation and plan a possible response.
In Katrina, a combination of agency incompetence— caused by the process described above(thank you[re=257945]Gallowglass)—cold blooded calculation (New Orleans votes as blue as blue can be) and racism led to slow motion murder.
An administration can focus on governing or on concentrating power. It can’t do both well.
Off topic, but did anyone else see the story about how some Sunshine State dingbat called 911 to report that her local McDonald’s had run out of Chicken McNuggets?
I saw this story, and me first thought was “this woman has to be from Florida.” Sadly, I was right. My sister, who used to live in Florida, told me the people are insane there because the heat and the humidity scramble their brains. Is she right?
[re=258088]HedonismBot[/re]: MY first thought, not “me first thought.”
Arrrr!! I be a pirate now. And Michael Steele, you be da man.
[re=258079]peachgirl[/re]: Well, WA is kinda blue (although the severely red folk have bled into it a bit). But the point is – had our governor (along with other officials) not pressed FEMA to get involved it may not have happened. It helps enormously to have local advocates in government. I’m just trying to figure out how things could happen differently in the south (not how the government could approach the people but how the individual could approach their government). Which means sticking strictly to facts and personal experience. You can’t change something based on conjecture. There is no reason people in the south should be expected to be treated any less generously than I was. Instead of making this into a red/blue issue – I just want these folks to have the same quality of care and concern I received. However, that may mean stepping forward and demanding it (in an intelligent manner). Not just griping, but KNOWING THEIR RIGHTS and exercising them. Sometimes I think you get the help you expect – and sometimes more.
[re=258088]HedonismBot[/re]: Her logic was solid though. In her mind she’d just been robbed. Knowing what McDonald’s food actually does to the human body she should have been thanking them for thwarting her attempted suicide.
[re=258094]Custerwolf[/re]: I hope you don’t encounter reason to rethink your sunny civic optimism.
[re=258108]peachgirl[/re]:I’m not sure what you mean, but in large part I like to rely on my own concrete life experience, as reason’s pretty subjective and can mean different things to different people. Facts – now those I like. And sometimes it seems that people like to frame a problem in ways that ensure it will remain a problem. I don’t want that to happen in this case. Certainly you don’t think FEMA comes sweeping out of the heavens to help those in need. They are not a benevolent agency, they are a government agency designed to provide certain public services- because our tax dollars pay them to. What’s so wrong with having ‘sunny civic optimism?’
[re=258088]HedonismBot[/re]: Yeah, I think you can safely say that this sort of thing characterizes Florida. I don’t think Carl Hiassen would disagree. It is not just the stupidity, it is the sheer surrealism of it all.
“Craig Fugate, who oversees the *** daily tragic emergencies in Florida ***, will be Barack Obama’s new chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.”
Watch we get an earthquake here in CA and we’re offered swamp insurance and are shipped fried food as a rescue effort. Oh noooes!
CA > FL FTW!
Hopey picked someone from Florida because Florida has it’s shit together hurricane-wise… Katrina was in LOUSIANA, FYI that’s West of Florida since obviously the only map Wonkette has is that stupid New Yorker poster from the 70′s… When Katrina hit LA, Florida was set on go to provide aid, including everything from food to Baily bridges (the temporary kind), but the Dem run State of Lousiana had it’s Dem head up it’s Dem ass so far they refused all help! Fuck ‘em if they want to take a natural disaster and turn it into a human tragedy and then blame it all on poor ol’ incompetent Bush… Fugate is a good choice.
And to you Left Coast people bitching about Fugate, why the fuck do you live on top of an active fault line? At least we can see the damn hurricane coming! And use prescribed fire (google it) in the appropriate season and maybe you won’t have half the fucking state burning up every other year followed by landslides when it rains…
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