Kentucky Tornadoes & Federal Aid

Cmaier

Site Master
Staff Member
Site Donor
Posts
5,213
Reaction score
8,257
We went down to Dawson Springs KY yesterday to visit my sister and her family. They are ok. I lived there for about 7 years when I was younger. Total devastation, unbelievable. They say Dawson is worse than Mayfield because the tornado went through residential in Dawson, while business in Mayfield.

Can't believe there were no fatalities in this house

IMG_5303-XL.jpg

I say fuck Kentucky. I will recant when they invent a Time Machine and their senators go back in time and change their votes on aid for hurricane sandy survivors.
 

Eric

Mama's lil stinker
Posts
11,294
Reaction score
21,744
Location
California
Instagram
Main Camera
Sony
I say fuck Kentucky. I will recant when they invent a Time Machine and their senators go back in time and change their votes on aid for hurricane sandy survivors.
Rand Paul is the most hypocritical dirtbag in all of Congress, yet they keep voting for the guy. Of course the nation would never leave them without aid and they know that, the only difference is this is the only time Paul didn't argue against it.
 

JohnR

Tesla & Steeler fan
Posts
62
Reaction score
60
Because you 2 take something personal of mine and bring in your own political beliefs. Done with it.
 

Eric

Mama's lil stinker
Posts
11,294
Reaction score
21,744
Location
California
Instagram
Main Camera
Sony
Because you 2 take something personal of mine and bring in your own political beliefs. Done with it.
Got it and that's fair, was not my intention to downplay something personal like that so I apologize.
 

lizkat

Watching March roll out real winter
Posts
7,341
Reaction score
15,163
Location
Catskill Mountains
I say fuck Kentucky. I will recant when they invent a Time Machine and their senators go back in time and change their votes on aid for hurricane sandy survivors.

I don't think it's right to assume that everyone in Kentucky said 'F&ck New York' after Hurricane Sandy..,
 

Cmaier

Site Master
Staff Member
Site Donor
Posts
5,213
Reaction score
8,257
I don't think it's right to assume that everyone in Kentucky said 'F&ck New York' after Hurricane Sandy..,

I don’t assume they did. But they keep electing the guy who did. (And who had a history of voting against any aid for any natural disasters in any blue states).
 

lizkat

Watching March roll out real winter
Posts
7,341
Reaction score
15,163
Location
Catskill Mountains
I don’t assume they did. But they keep electing the guy who did. (And who had a history of voting against any aid for any natural disasters in any blue states).

Sure, we may castigate assorted elected officials ( West Virginia's Joe Manchin does come to my mind often lately), and be annoyed or exasperated that their constituents have given them powers that affect the course of events outside of their district or state.

But I don't think that justifies taking "an eye for an eye" sort of outlook on the people of a state hit by a natural disaster... EVEN IF there are some people in Kentucky who may well have said "F&ck New York" after Hurricane Sandy back in 2012.

About 4.3 million people lived in Kentucky in 2010 when Rand Paul was first elected. It was not a Presidential election year, so turnout was predictably a little lower for a midterm contest and only 1.3 million Kentuckians (about 30%) turned out to vote for a candidate in the US Senate race. Paul won 55.7% of those votes and the Democrat Jack Conway got 44.3%.

rand paul vote stats 2010.jpg

So we're looking at just 755k people (then 17.6% of Kentucky's whole population) who at least nominally agreed with Rand Paul's views on things... including aid for natural disasters.... and that's before taking into consideration that not everyone eligible to vote does vote, and not everyone who does vote is a Johnny-one-note voter. As hot button issues go, aid for natural disasters is not a ballot-buster anyway.

But just on the grounds that Rand Paul did win the 2010 election, you're willing to dismiss the humanity of the 755k people who voted for him, as well as the humanity of all the roughly 3.5 million Kentuckians who did not or could not vote either for or against him in the election prior to the 2012 Hurricane Sandy diaster?

C'mon. You're way better than Rand Paul, and I don't intend insult there. I mean he's such a piece of work.
 

Cmaier

Site Master
Staff Member
Site Donor
Posts
5,213
Reaction score
8,257
Sure, we may castigate assorted elected officials ( West Virginia's Joe Manchin does come to my mind often lately), and be annoyed or exasperated that their constituents have given them powers that affect the course of events outside of their district or state.

But I don't think that justifies taking "an eye for an eye" sort of outlook on the people of a state hit by a natural disaster... EVEN IF there are some people in Kentucky who may well have said "F&ck New York" after Hurricane Sandy back in 2012.

About 4.3 million people lived in Kentucky in 2010 when Rand Paul was first elected. It was not a Presidential election year, so turnout was predictably a little lower for a midterm contest and only 1.3 million Kentuckians (about 30%) turned out to vote for a candidate in the US Senate race. Paul won 55.7% of those votes and the Democrat Jack Conway got 44.3%.


So we're looking at just 755k people (then 17.6% of Kentucky's whole population) who at least nominally agreed with Rand Paul's views on things... including aid for natural disasters.... and that's before taking into consideration that not everyone eligible to vote does vote, and not everyone who does vote is a Johnny-one-note voter. As hot button issues go, aid for natural disasters is not a ballot-buster anyway.

But just on the grounds that Rand Paul did win the 2010 election, you're willing to dismiss the humanity of the 755k people who voted for him, as well as the humanity of all the roughly 3.5 million Kentuckians who did not or could not vote either for or against him in the election prior to the 2012 Hurricane Sandy diaster?

C'mon. You're way better than Rand Paul, and I don't intend insult there. I mean he's such a piece of work.
Sorry, but as someone affected by the republican slow-walking of aid now twice (fires in california and flooding in NY), I’m in no mood to be charitable about this. Why is it that progressives always have to play nice but conservatives are free to demand means testing and spending offsets to help people in need? How many times do I need to let my parents and friends be forced out of their homes due to natural disasters before I get to be angry at the folks who keep electing these scumbags?
 

lizkat

Watching March roll out real winter
Posts
7,341
Reaction score
15,163
Location
Catskill Mountains
Sorry, but as someone affected by the republican slow-walking of aid now twice (fires in california and flooding in NY), I’m in no mood to be charitable about this. Why is it that progressives always have to play nice but conservatives are free to demand means testing and spending offsets to help people in need? How many times do I need to let my parents and friends be forced out of their homes due to natural disasters before I get to be angry at the folks who keep electing these scumbags?


Wanting to deny aid to those who need it --as payback for how we see other people's votes having injured us or our own, or for any other reason-- doesn't actually change how the system works. That takes time and either elbow grease or money and usually all three.

Also, in rural areas there's sometimes more cooperation between private and public sector efforts to recover from natural disasters than may be visible in urban or suburban areas, and that fact does tend to influence how people view federal expenditures on disaster aid.

I know the fire halls up here phoned down to KY to find out whether they could use some spare generators and were taken up on that offer with gratitude. Those guys have been up here from the south to help out in the past when what we were suffering was after effects of massive ice storms. They came bearing chain saws, generators and trucks with cranes, not just food and blankets. Yeah they work for utility companies. But it's Bobby and Jack and Joe down the road made the phone calls to get things rolling, and they were doing it before the power went out too.

So in a way I can see how some rural folk figure that all good disaster aid is local or networked to cousins and colleagues from similar occupations in other states, and that federal taxes all end up swirling into some black hole in DC with a giant sucking sound. Suspicion of federal intervention is a thing in the boondocks. Much of it comes from regulation of waterways and forests and other environments where exploitation of natural resources is fundamental to a local economy.

Around here a lot of people still hate the state's Department of Environmental Protection because, as noted by a descendant of a family in one of the four villages that were drowned to make reservoirs for NYC drinking water, "They didn't outright drown all the people right in our houses at that time, so we still f^cking remember."

But see what they "remember" all these 60 years later is mostly that their cousin or pal may have got a speeding ticket from the watershed cops who patrol reservoir roads up here and look after protection of the downstate water supply. And yes they can ticket you for speeding, on court-tested grounds that a car crash can generate oil, gas and radiator effluents capable of polluting NYC's drinking water, about half of which springs from the headwaters of watersheds into two reservoirs right here in my own county.

You can get a ticket for spilling half a pint of oil in your own driveway up here, if someone rats you out. That's fine with some of us and not so fine with others. And those others, well, they get where Rand Paul is coming from, even as dead wrong as he (and they) actually are.

It's human nature to be suspicious of stuff that doesn't seem to benefit your own tribe, unfortunately. And even worse, the Democrats in US politics are terrible at explaining how federal programs benefit rural residents, and the Republicans have made an art form out of converting that incompetence into an ability to take taxpayer bucks with one hand while holding an anti-taxation bullhorn in the other.
 
U

User.45

Guest
Sorry, but as someone affected by the republican slow-walking of aid now twice (fires in california and flooding in NY), I’m in no mood to be charitable about this. Why is it that progressives always have to play nice but conservatives are free to demand means testing and spending offsets to help people in need? How many times do I need to let my parents and friends be forced out of their homes due to natural disasters before I get to be angry at the folks who keep electing these scumbags?
I share your disappointments about hypocritical grifters being voted for, but I think JohnR and Lizkat have fair points.
 

Yoused

up
Posts
5,511
Reaction score
8,685
Location
knee deep in the road apples of the 4 horsemen
How many times do I need to let my parents and friends be forced out of their homes due to natural disasters before I get to be angry at the folks who keep electing these scumbags?
I thought you were good at math?

Most of the voters in KY are pliable dupes who vote based on noise. The RW has become very adept are producing extremely effective BS noise that works well on the pliable dupes.

In other words, your anger may be somewhat misdirected. Those who control the actual messaging that plies the dupes to vote for fecal matter like Tribblehead are the ones toward whom you should direct your enmity. Them and and the ones who facilitate the spread of their bullshit.
 

Cmaier

Site Master
Staff Member
Site Donor
Posts
5,213
Reaction score
8,257
I thought you were good at math?

Most of the voters in KY are pliable dupes who vote based on noise. The RW has become very adept are producing extremely effective BS noise that works well on the pliable dupes.

In other words, your anger may be somewhat misdirected. Those who control the actual messaging that plies the dupes to vote for fecal matter like Tribblehead are the ones toward whom you should direct your enmity. Them and and the ones who facilitate the spread of their bullshit.

I will consider and think on these arguments, but right now they strike me a bit like “the problem was the nazis in office, not the voters who put the nazis in office”
 

lizkat

Watching March roll out real winter
Posts
7,341
Reaction score
15,163
Location
Catskill Mountains
So the weather thread finally meets Godwin on page 34...

[EDIT: well that was before someone sensibly moved the whole Kentucky tornado / aid discussion to its own thread. So now Godwin showed up while we were still on Page One, which is more typical of recent years, come to think of it. ]
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom
1 2