trump off the CO ballot

[President Bush]

As I said, I don't think you are actually interested.

That's nice.

However, I'll start with an attempt to do so briefly, and see where it goes.

FEMA's primary job is to distribute aid following disasters. That's a task that is largely independent of any of the categories mentioned as underserved communities, especially those related to sexual orientation or gender identity. Many people, including me, suspect that FEMA holding workshops on serving the LGBTQ+ community indicates a lack of focus on their primary mission. I, and others, would prefer to see something like "efficiency" or "effectiveness" as the first item in FEMA's strategic plan.

THis obsession with race, gender, sex, etc permeates so many of our institutions in government and even industry. Donald Trump is opposed to that obsession and the agenda that accompanies it, and his opposition to that agenda is more forceful even than most other Republican politicians.

For me, that doesn't excuse all of his many other faults, but I can understand the appeal.

Looks to me as if your preoccupation with sexual orientation or gender identity leads you to overlook the other communities that were mentioned in FEMA's Executive Order 13985. Here they are, as listed in that (I left out the ones you seem preoccupied with):

I'm unconvinced that looking after the special needs of Black, Latino, and Indigenous and Native American persons, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and other persons of color is really an effective way to respond to emergencies. Poor people who live in densely populated areas might be affected differently than wealthy suburbanites, but I think focusing on those factors that cause an actual difference in the sort of response required by FEMA in the event of a disaster might be more effective than talking about skin color or ancestry.

bolding mine.

What special needs are you referring to?

[Meadmaker]

What special needs are you referring to?

You see, this is what I was referring to when I said you weren't interested.

It doesn't seem like you want to make a case. You don't want to defend a position. You don't want to put forward any information.

You're sniping and Just Asking Questions and all that, but there's no real contribution. Not that a contribution is required. Sincere questions could be a case of making an attempt to understand a position, but I don't think that's the case here, either.


To answer your question, though, the answer is I don't know. Somehow, FEMA, on their web page, thought those mentioned groups had some sort of special considerations that merited listing them in FEMA's strategic plan. Somebody must think there's something significant about them. Whatever that is, or to phrase it differently, whatever those special needs are, I think FEMA would better serve the American people and specifically victims of disasters by just trying to be efficient at distributing aid. It's possible that living conditions in various places might mean a different response is needed in urban vs. rural ares, or even wealthy versus poor neighborhoods, but I think they should leave ancestry and skin color out of it.

An awful lot of Americans also agree with that, and they think that, probably, a FEMA director appointed by Donald Trump is more likely to refocus the agency toward efficiency and away from whatever it is that they think is important about point number 1 in their strategic plan.

Personally, I would be worried that Donald Trump would abuse FEMA power to further his own personal interest, but I can understand why, seeing the verbiage in the FEMA strategic plan, some people would think that a change is appropriate.

[President Bush]

What special needs are you referring to?

You see, this is what I was referring to when I said you weren't interested.

It doesn't seem like you want to make a case. You don't want to defend a position. You don't want to put forward any information.

You're sniping and Just Asking Questions and all that, but there's no real contribution. Not that a contribution is required. Sincere questions could be a case of making an attempt to understand a position, but I don't think that's the case here, either.


To answer your question, though, the answer is I don't know. Somehow, FEMA, on their web page, thought those mentioned groups had some sort of special considerations that merited listing them in FEMA's strategic plan. Somebody must think there's something significant about them. Whatever that is, or to phrase it differently, whatever those special needs are, I think FEMA would better serve the American people and specifically victims of disasters by just trying to be efficient at distributing aid. It's possible that living conditions in various places might mean a different response is needed in urban vs. rural ares, or even wealthy versus poor neighborhoods, but I think they should leave ancestry and skin color out of it.

An awful lot of Americans also agree with that, and they think that, probably, a FEMA director appointed by Donald Trump is more likely to refocus the agency toward efficiency and away from whatever it is that they think is important about point number 1 in their strategic plan.

Personally, I would be worried that Donald Trump would abuse FEMA power to further his own personal interest, but I can understand why, seeing the verbiage in the FEMA strategic plan, some people would think that a change is appropriate.

Guess you can't answer the question: what special needs are you referring to?

Nowhere in the FEMA language that you indicate you have a problem with is the term "special needs" used.

If you don't know what you mean by the words you use... use different words. Not everybody shares your apparently unconscious assumptions.

[President Bush]

Meadmaker, I wish you were more adept at sustaining an argument. I'm more interested in being challenged so that I am motivated at look into things further, to learn something new, than to be merely right about something on the internet.

Should FEMA try to address the reality that some individuals and communities are more vulnerable to disaster than others... well, about time that took place.

Research has shown that post-disaster assistance may be inequitably distributed and that socially vulnerable residents may experience constraints in recovering from disasters. We examined social inequities in receipt of assistance and near-term recovery for a population-based sample of 312 Greater Houston households surveyed following Hurricane Harvey.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 0920312681

Federal disaster relief has long fallen short in measures of equity. Research demonstrates that unequal recovery efforts following extreme disaster events have contributed to lasting racial and social divides.

https://www.axios.com/2022/09/21/climat ... color-toll

A growing body of research shows that FEMA, the government agency responsible for helping Americans recover from disasters, often helps white disaster victims more than people of color, even when the amount of damage is the same. Not only do individual white Americans often receive more aid from FEMA; so do the communities in which they live, according to several recent studies based on federal data.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/07/clim ... imate.html

The Speights were living on a fixed income, and they didn't have home insurance. They didn't have the money to fix the damage. So, like most disaster survivors, they turned to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for help.

But the Speights didn't get the help they needed, and their experience echoes those of low-income disaster survivors across the country. FEMA's own analyses show that low-income survivors are less likely than more affluent people to get crucial federal emergency assistance, according to internal documents NPR obtained through a public records request.

https://www.npr.org/2021/06/29/10043470 ... t-the-most

Disasters are becoming more common in America. In the early and mid-20th century, fewer than 20 percent of U.S. counties experienced a disaster each year. Today, it's about 50 percent. According to the 2018 National Climate Assessment, climate change is already driving more severe droughts, floods and wildfires in the U.S. And those disasters are expensive. The federal government spends billions of dollars annually helping communities rebuild and prevent future damage. But an NPR investigation has found that across the country, white Americans and those with more wealth often receive more federal dollars after a disaster than do minorities and those with less wealth. Federal aid isn't necessarily allocated to those who need it most; it's allocated according to cost-benefit calculations meant to minimize taxpayer risk.

https://www.npr.org/2019/03/05/68878617 ... s-the-rich

For a variety of reasons, federal responses to support communities after natural disasters are inequitable. Housing assistance and rebuilding efforts in the disaster recovery period are often targeted to homeowners and wealthier survivors, deepening entrenched racial and socioeconomic inequities and exacerbating crises of homelessness, inadequate low-cost housing, displacement, and the racial wealth gap. When looking at the life cycle of natural disasters and the response from FEMA and other agencies, it is clear that the problem is deeply rooted in America’s history and systems.

https://www.americanprogress.org/articl ... ssistance/

It didn't take me much time to find these illustrations of uneven levels of help administered after a natural disaster had struck, it seems more the norm than the exception.

Should some people take issue with governmental attempts to address this, especially after being egged on for political reasons... better than actually blowing up the levee, I guess.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGs2iLoDUYE

[sparks]

Well done Prez. Well done.

We do have some here that aren't here for the debate but to merely shoot the shit. Not very enlightening. And usually no fun at all.

But there it is.

[Meadmaker]

It didn't take me much time to find these illustrations of uneven levels of help administered after a natural disaster had struck, it seems more the norm than the exception.

Should some people take issue with governmental attempts to address this, especially after being egged on for political reasons... better than actually blowing up the levee, I guess.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGs2iLoDUYE

Ok. Good information.

Obviously I haven't read all of it word for word, nor do I intend to, but I read enough to get a reasonably clear picture.

It's a totally messed up program. Oh, wait. You could say that about an awful lot of government programs.

The consistent message from all of those articles, though, is that there are ways that FEMA programs benefit wealthy people more than poor people. Many of those same articles said that black people were affected more than white people. That's true, but it's a consequence of benefitting the wealthy more than the poor.

Which is dumb as hell, right? Completely independent of whether or not someone is an Asian or Pacific Islander.

So I would be 100% on board if FEMA, on their strategy page, had verbiage that said they should shift programs to find ways to more effectively serve the needs of poor people who suffer damage from natural disasters. I like what the Center for American Progress said about allocating aid based on need, rather than on damage. That's very sensible.

They also talked at great length about focusing on the needs of renters. That sounds great, but now we get into some problematic areas, because renters, in general, are not responsible for repairs, so a lot fo the money would have to go to landlords. That's not horrible. In fact, the CAP calls for it in their article. And yet, if they did it, I will guarantee you that CAP would be the first one to publish the headline "Study Finds FEMA Dollars go to Billionaire Property Developes".

Oh....and FEMA includes the LGBTQ community among those that are underserved, but the articles did not give any mention at all to that community. I guess they must have been written by homophobes.

Anyway, it's interesting reading, and I'll probably look a bit more closely later, but the general message of those articles is that FEMA programs give a lot of money to middle class white folks who, in my humble opinion, maybe should buy insurance instead?

But I already knew FEMA did that. They wrote me a check 10 years ago when my basement flooded. My neighbor didn't get anything. He had insurance. It's dumb as hell.

[stanky]

Comes as no surprise. Poor and minority neighborhoods typically get less infrastructure attention and are likelier closer to a factory or a dump site. Cops, emts, firemen will be slower to respond. It makes sense for money's future to take care of money. Sing it a lullaby.
What's your worth? we say, as if commodities. More worth, more fema. Otherwise, communism. Welfare state.
A lot of Trump's fan base love him for his racism. They aren't expecting him to help Negroes or be fair. Quite the opposite.

[President Bush]

Comes as no surprise. Poor and minority neighborhoods typically get less infrastructure attention and are likelier closer to a factory or a dump site. Cops, emts, firemen will be slower to respond. It makes sense for money's future to take care of money. Sing it a lullaby.
What's your worth? we say, as if commodities. More worth, more fema. Otherwise, communism. Welfare state.
A lot of Trump's fan base love him for his racism. They aren't expecting him to help Negroes or be fair. Quite the opposite.

Fair, just, and impartial treatment for guys who are going to ate your dog? Oooh, that makes me mad.

https://www.npr.org/2024/10/05/g-s1-265 ... e-isolated


I prefer normal America.

Nanci and Jonathan Lewis received $100,000 from FEMA to elevate their 3,900-square-foot home in 2018 across the street from the beach in Fairfield. The home had been flooded during Superstorm Sandy, and the Lewises spent at least $150,000 of their own money on the elevation, which lifted the house about 5 feet.

The FEMA-funded project added a room to the house and led to a drastic cut in the Lewises’ insurance rates while also improving their view of the Long Island Sound across the street.

“We definitely had more water view,” Nanci Lewis said in an interview.

In 2020, after the elevation was finished, the town of Fairfield doubled the home’s value to $2 million, town records show. The Lewises sold the house for $2.1 million the following year.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/2 ... s-00032080

[Meadmaker]

I prefer normal America.

Nanci and Jonathan Lewis received $100,000 from FEMA to elevate their 3,900-square-foot home in 2018 across the street from the beach in Fairfield. The home had been flooded during Superstorm Sandy, and the Lewises spent at least $150,000 of their own money on the elevation, which lifted the house about 5 feet.

The FEMA-funded project added a room to the house and led to a drastic cut in the Lewises’ insurance rates while also improving their view of the Long Island Sound across the street.

“We definitely had more water view,” Nanci Lewis said in an interview.

In 2020, after the elevation was finished, the town of Fairfield doubled the home’s value to $2 million, town records show. The Lewises sold the house for $2.1 million the following year.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/2 ... s-00032080

[/quote]

Crazy, right?

Let's tie this all back to the thing that started this conversation.

This started when I expressed some disgust at a story about FEMA prioritizing aid for LGBTQ people.

It turns out the story distorted the reality of the phone call it was citing. Quelle surprise! The partisan media blows things out of proportion and creates misleading stories. There were no lies, as such, in the story. They just made it sound a lot more significant than it is. FEMA really did host a seminar about LGBT people and disasters, and a FEMA "executive" (I never did get his actual title) did express the opinion that LGBTQ people suffered so much in our society that maybe FEMA could do something to help during disaster recovery. However, it's not like that executive suggested that when handing out aid, they should give more to queer folk than straight folk. Nevertheless, despite the distortion, the article did point to FEMA's home page and in their very own home page describing their own top priorities, race took center stage, and sexuality was right behind it.

Meanwhile, that agency is giving 100,000 dollars for people to renovate 2 million dollar homes.

Now, I will guarantee you that when writing regulations, not one person in FEMA said in a meeting, "I think we should have a program to enhance home values of expensive beachfront property!" And yet, they wrote regulations that did exactly that.

So, here are some things that the average American might say about that:

"These clowns are so busy trying to protect LGBTQIA2S+ people that they can't actually figure out how to get money to actual victims!"
"All they really care about is growing their budget and keeping lbureaucrats employed."
"Why the hell do we give these people our tax money so they can give it out to rich folks with beachfront property?"

In other words, the average American will look at a story like the Lewis' beachront property, and they will see it as government incompetence. If you throw in the social justice leanings described on the FEMA home page, they will see something that they think is a contributing factor to that incompetence.

And I don't mean "right wingers" or "Trump voters". I mean average Americans. It's what makes some of those average Americans decide to become Trump voters.

Will Trump actually fix it? Not likely. That's not the point, though. He at least says things that are appealing. If he says there's a bunch of government incompetence because FEMA is run by deep state operatives with a political agenda, you can point to the home page of FEMA to see the evidence.

[President Bush]

It didn't take me much time to find these illustrations of uneven levels of help administered after a natural disaster had struck, it seems more the norm than the exception.

Should some people take issue with governmental attempts to address this, especially after being egged on for political reasons... better than actually blowing up the levee, I guess.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGs2iLoDUYE

Ok. Good information.

Thanks. Your turn.