Trump’s FEMA – Memphis Flyer

The Mississippi River is the most endangered river in the country, according to a new report from American Rivers, a national conservation organization.

The biggest threats to the river are the Trump administration’s promises to severely cut or abolish the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the National Flood Insurance Program. American Rivers said these threats “[risk] river health and human safety along the entirety of its 2,320-mile stretch and could compound long-standing threats to the river.”

“The Mississippi River is vital to our nation’s health, wealth, and security. We drink from it, we grow our food with it, we travel on it, we live alongside it, and simply, we admire its beauty,” said Mike Sertle, central region director for American Rivers. “We cannot turn our back on Mississippi River communities or the health of the river millions depend on at this critical time when they need unified direction instead of uncertainty at the national level.”

In March, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that would push much of what FEMA does to states.

“Federal policy must rightly recognize that preparedness is most effectively owned and managed at the state, local, and even individual levels, supported by a competent, accessible, and efficient federal government,” reads the order. “When states are empowered to make smart infrastructure choices, taxpayers benefit.”

The order also called for the federal government to “streamline its preparedness operations.” This led to hundreds of layoffs at FEMA with many more promised, leaving states worried about the future.

FEMA’s mission goes beyond emergency response and rebuilding after disaster, according to American Rivers. It develops minimum standards for construction in floodplains, provides flood insurance to homeowners, and mitigates future risks. FEMA also helps in relocating flood-prone homes to higher ground.

“Without strong federal leadership in flood risk management, communities along the Mississippi River — and across the country — will face even greater threats from worsening floods,” said Chad Berginnis, executive director of the Association of State Floodplain Managers (ASFPM). “At the same time, we recognize that states and local governments must take on a greater role in managing flood risks. Strengthening their capacity — whether through incentives or penalties — will lead to better outcomes.

“But no amount of state or local action can replace the need for coordinated federal support, especially when major disasters strike. Now is the time to reinforce our national commitment to flood risk reduction, not walk away from it.”

The Mississippi River spans 10 states and 123 counties from the headwaters in Minnesota to its mouth in Louisiana. The river carries more water than any other of the nation’s rivers and is the primary source of drinking water for more than 50 municipalities. The river is also a source for manufacturing, tourism, agriculture, navigation, and energy.

The river and its 30-million-acre floodplain also provide vital habitat for more than 870 species of fish and wildlife, including dozens of rare, threatened, and endangered species.

Long-standing threats to the river include chemical runoff that has led to regular toxic algae outbreaks in significant stretches of the river as well as hypoxic dead zones, sea level rise that is accelerating wetland loss and saltwater intrusion, exacerbating droughts, and infrastructure like levees and navigation structures that negatively impact the natural flow of the river.

The Mississippi River City and Towns Initiative, a group of mayors from up and down the river, said it does not believe the river has earned the designation of the most endangered waterway. Instead, the group said it believes “there is always a need to protect our nation’s and the world’s most important waterway.”

“A total elimination of the agency would cripple the nation’s emergency response and risk management apparatus,” said Belinda Constant, mayor of Gretna, Louisiana. “Additionally, disaster response along the Mississippi River is inherently a multi-state question and thus, FEMA needs to continue to play a vital role in coordinating the efforts of many states to systemically mitigate risks, recover, and restore infrastructure.”

This is the big one.

I know that’s what they always say, but this really is the big one. The upcoming elections will determine if we can preserve this nation’s noble experiment in democracy or sink further into the man-made chaos spewing from the White House.

This is the final chance to put a check on the blatant corruption of Donald Trump because no one in his party dares stand up to him. No Republican confronts his ignorance, his cruelty, his self-absorption, his greed, his serial lying, and his disregard for the rule of law. It’s imperative that these elections must flush the remnants of the Tea Party, aka the Freedom Caucus, from the body politic.

Suzda | Dreamstime.com

Trump and his weaponized propaganda machine, Fox News, have poisoned the electorate as surely as the governor of Michigan poisoned the residents of Flint. We’ve had bad presidents before. James Buchanan sided with slave owners and was an ardent supporter of the Dred Scott decision. (Google it.) Andrew Johnson showed up intoxicated to Lincoln’s second inaugural and three months later found his drunk ass in the White House. Then there was George W. Bush, the first American president to invade another sovereign country with the kinds of disastrous repercussions that we’re still enduring. But this country has never seen a dangerous lunatic in the Oval Office before. Donald Trump may never have taken a drink, but he’s most assuredly drunk on power. Let’s put Baby in a corner and see what happens.

As his approval rating drops like the Hindenburg, the gaseous menace’s conduct over the past two weeks has been particularly disturbing. First came his noxious tweet about the revised death toll from Hurricane Maria:

“3,000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico … When I left the Island AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths … Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3,000 … This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars [sic] to help rebuild Puerto Rico. If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico!!”

A study at George Washington University, financed by the government of Puerto Rico, placed the number of deaths related to the storm at 2,975, so at least Trump was correct in stating there weren’t 3,000. Independent studies by The New York Times, Penn State, and Harvard all estimated deaths in the thousands. After being called “fake news,” George Washington University responded: “We stand by the science underlying our study. This study … was carried out with complete independence and freedom from any kind of interference.”

Yet Trump continues to place blame on San Juan’s mayor and the country’s fragile infrastructure. Trump claimed it was difficult to get supplies trucked in to hurricane victims because, “This is an island surrounded by water, big water, ocean water.” Has he not been informed that we have jumbo cargo jets for that specific purpose? Three thousand dead is the equivalent of Puerto Rico’s own 9/11, yet Trump actually said, “I think that Puerto Rico was an incredible unsung success.” At long last, sir, have you left no sense no decency?
Residents in the path of Hurricane Florence were warned by the chief executive that the storm would be “tremendously big and tremendously wet.” No shit. The president has congratulated himself in advance for responding to this disaster even while area rainfall has set new records and flooding continues.

Speaking of rain, by the time you read this, you could have received a text from the new “Presidential Alert System.” FEMA, in partnership with the FCC, has devised the Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) system, which sends direct messages to anyone owning a cell phone. The FEMA homepage divides the alerts into three categories: Extreme weather or “other threatening emergencies”; AMBER alerts; and “Presidential alerts during a national emergency.” FEMA states, “You can opt-out of receiving WEA messages for imminent threats or AMBER alerts, but not for Presidential messages.”

On September 20th, at 1:18 p.m. (central), be prepared for your phone to sound a tone and start to vibrate twice. Your personal text will be headed “Presidential Alert.” At any other time in history this might be a good idea, but does anyone doubt that the Infantile Tweeter might use the “Presidential Alert,” for his own demented intentions? FEMA officials insist that the system can’t be used for political purposes nor track your location.

Does it make you feel safer knowing that Donald Trump now has immediate access to every cell phone in the country? We already have warning systems in NOAA weather, the news, and that annoying Emergency Alert System that blasts out every week from television. The FEMA weather alerts include “Tsunami warnings, tornadoes and flash floods, hurricanes, typhoons, dust storms, and extreme wind warnings.”

I’ve never been much of a conspiracy theorist, but I’ll bet my iPhone that as the walls close in, you’ll be receiving text messages from Donnie the Liar. And the walls are closing in on a president that historians might well call “The Great Aberration.” That’s why the upcoming election is The Big One. Certainly the biggest one of my life. Mad King Don’s daily assaults on the free press and anyone who has the temerity to disagree with him must end. And the same goes for his cowardly enablers in the bankrupt GOP. The “Witch Hunt” has now snared Paul Manafort, whose plea deal puts Don Jr., Jared Kushner, Roger Stone, and the president himself in serious legal peril. This “fake Russher,” thing has now produced eight convictions plus indictments for 26 individuals and three corporations. After Manafort does his Tony Bennett impression, an avalanche of indictments will be forthcoming. One morning, and it won’t be long, we’ll all awaken to hear Robert Mueller speak for the first time. Pandora’s Box is fixing to open, and when it does, all the fraud, the money laundering through Trump properties, the Russian Mafia connections, influence peddling, graft, tax evasion, and whatever Putin has on Trump will come pouring out, and when that happens, it will be “tremendously big and tremendously wet.”

Randy Haspel writes the “Recycled Hippies” blog.