SoCalDem
SoCalDem's Journal
It's a real advantage to us that Romney's tone-deaf
Imagine the scenario:
Convention's going along & he sends his minions to buy every bit of bottle water & energy bars they can get their hands on..and as soon as the party's over, they truck it in/fly it in/whatever and photo op of them giving it to the red cross & then they leave..
Instead, he tells a woman to go home & call 211
Heckova job, Mittens 
Isaac renews old debate about Louisiana levees
Posted: Friday, August 31, 2012 5:23 pm | Updated: 7:24 pm, Fri Aug 31, 2012.
http://www.wdtimes.com/news/national/article_506565d4-8725-531d-b056-e650835c4eeb.html
Associated Press
When Hurricane Isaac whirled into the Gulf Coast this week, the federal levee system protecting New Orleans did its job. But the patchwork of floodwalls shielding subdivisions outside the city and rural fishing and farming communities was no match for the drenching storm. As the cleanup began Friday, an old debate grew more urgent: Is it worth billions of dollars to build better levees in areas that are sparsely populated and naturally flood-prone? Since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the Army Corps of Engineers has backed away from the idea of extending protection across much of south Louisiana, citing doubts about whether improved levees would work and whether the money could be better spent elsewhere.
None of that sits well with locals, who feel abandoned.
"Each time you have a hurricane, you are going to spend enormous amounts of money on search and rescue, rebuilding churches, schools, everything, just like right here in Ironton," said Charles J. Ballay, district attorney of Plaquemines Parish, as he rode atop an airboat looking for stranded residents. "This was a Category 1 storm and look at what it has done."
snip
About 1 million people in coastal Louisiana live outside the massive levee system that protects greater New Orleans, and almost all of them are at risk of flooding during a major storm. For decades, Louisiana has pressed the federal government to erect larger, stronger levees in areas vulnerable to hurricanes. The calls for better protection intensified after Isaac. "These people don't deserve this," Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu told WVUE-TV near Braithwaite, a community flooded to the rooftops when a nearby non-federal levee was overwhelmed by Isaac's storm surge. "We have to fight harder and stronger for protection for everyone. You know, on one side of the levee it's completely dry. Houses are safe. Families are going back to normal. And on the other side, it's a nightmare." Matt Ranatza, a farmer in Jesuit Bend, a town left out of the federal system in Plaquemines, said the situation makes him "insane." "There's a perfectly good levee right behind my house that they could have fixed, and that's the levee that was in danger of overtopping," he said. "For them to just say we're not going to do it there is criminal."
snip
Besides that, the Louisiana coast is steadily eroding due to rising sea levels, oil drilling and even levee building that stops spring floods from replenishing marshes. The state has lost about 1,900 square miles of land since the 1930s, and scientists warn that more will follow. Paul Kemp, a coastal geologist who heads the National Audubon Society's Gulf Coast Initiative, said many people in Louisiana are drawing back from the coast and behind the better levees systems. "Look at Plaquemines since Katrina," Kemp said. "It has not been rebuilt. It's a bunch of trailers. That's what the future holds: People will have a house behind the levee and then have something more disposable outside the levees."
So, Romney laughed backstage & thought Clint's schtick was funny?
If this is true, is anyone surprised?
The people close to Romney talk about his sense of humor.
He thinks stuff like this is funny:
tripping a pregnant daughter-in-law so he can win at Romney-Olympic games
smashing food into kids' faces
chasing down an outsider kid and scissor-scalping him
pretending to be a cop/sheriff/whatever..using a real uniform gotten his through Dad's connections
cutting in line ahead of the kids so he can eat first
talking about the fun filled trip the dog made on the roof of the car
making snarky comments about el cheapo rain slickers at Nascar
making snarky comments about food offered by hosts on the campaign trail
making jokes about wiping hard drives of journalists (knowing that he did it for REAL as he exited the governor's job)
yep that Mitt..he's a real cut up
Guffaw guffaw guffaw
Coming to America for Freedom
That seems to be the common thread in last night's Lie-a-pallooza. Each speaker tried to impress upon us all , just how hard their ancestors had it, and for most if them it was not even their parents, but their grandparents who had migrated.
The thing they intimated, was that they came to get "freedom"..
Except for a few obvious groups, most came to get freedom from BEING POOR & HUNGRY.
They came here for the EXACT reason that so many Central Americans & Haitians keep trying to come here.. They want a better life.. "Freedom" is a side dish..an appetizer. They want the meat and potatoes of a JOB., a decent place to live, and schooling for their kids.
The one thing that modern day poor immigrants have, is LESS freedom, because the ones who have come here "illegally", have NO freedom. They live lives of constant fear of being "noticed" .
They are the the mercy of the hoity-toities who hire them for yardwork, nanny services, houskeeping, cooking...and the "businessmen" who hire them as day laborers etc... They do the dirty work that bosses refuse to pay living wages for..
The ancestors spoken about last night came here for the same reasons as modern day immigrants, but the rules have changed in the intervening years.
The rich folks last night admired those ancestors who came here with nothing, but they look down their noses at and have no difficulty tormenting the "new" versions of their own ancestors.
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