Left in Missouri spotted an interesting tidbit in the Missourian – the Missouri-based Urban Search and Rescue Task Force will be deployed to Minnesota for the GOP Convention, rather than the Gulf Coast for search and rescue after Hurricane Gustav hits (and Hanna, too.)

The Urban Search and Rescue Task Forces are highly trained and FEMA-certified first-responders capable of providing emergency medicine, disaster relief, and search and rescue operations. Each task force is organized into two teams of 31 individuals, and enough equipment and supplies to last the entire task force 5 days are pre-assembled and ready to ship out within hours of being notified.

According to a commenter at Left in Missouri, deploying them to Minnesota rather than Louisiana is no big deal, because there are 28 task forces total from around the country, and at least some of these are being deployed to the Gulf. Besides, there should be some units held in reserve, and the Missouri task force can always deploy after the convention if needed. Well, I’m hardly an expert on disaster response, but resources deployed across the country and given other responsibilities can hardly be called “held in reserve.”

Missouri is one of three states closest to the area in Gustav’s path that has a task force, and by FEMA’s own standard operating procedure the three closest task forces are supposed to be deployed. So why send a team from Missouri to the GOP convention, instead of from Minnesota or Wisconsin or Illinois?  

Apparently, those three states don’t have search and rescue task forces. Neither does any state bordering Minnesota. And as the article mentions, the closest task force, the one from Nebraska, is unavailable due to “staffing issues.” Wonder how many of FEMA’s emergency response personnel are unavailable due to “staffing issues?” Me too.

By the way, it’s one thing for McCain to show he cares more than he did 3 years ago when he was eating birthday cake with Bush while New Orleans drowned. It’s another thing to tie up resources by grandstanding.

The Kansas City Star should have kept their classical music critic and laid off their political writer. Useless, completely useless.

Yeah, I know, tell you something new.

Kraske on Sarah Palin:

ON POLITICS

Best week ever goes to American politics

By STEVE KRASKE

The Kansas City Star

Does it get any better than this…?

…Her coming out Friday was a success as she delivered a host of sizzling lines with a steady, determined hand.

Her best line: “I told Congress, ‘Thanks, but no thanks’ on that bridge to nowhere. If our state wanted a bridge, I said we’d build it ourselves…”

[emphasis added] tiny URL

Oh, really? You’d think a political reporter might do some fact checking, you know, like maybe from sources in Alaska, instead of being just a, a stenographer.

…Today, while I watched her hop out of the “Straight Talk Express” bus, and give the second reading of her acceptance speech, one of my fellow viewers said, “You know, I don’t remember her opposing the Bridge.”  And it hit me.  I don’t remember that either.  A quick double-check with the third member of our watch party confirmed our confusion.  We all live here.  We all watch the news, read the paper, and pay attention to the local political circus, but none of us connected Sarah with her claims of rebuffing the controversial earmark…

“….People across the nation struggle with the idea of building a bridge because they’ve been under these misperceptions about the bridge and the purpose,’ said Palin, who described the link as the Ketchikan area’s potential for expansion and growth.

Palin said Alaska’s congressional delegation worked hard to obtain funding for the bridge and that she ‘would not stand in the way of the progress toward that bridge’.

8-8-06

‘We need to come to the defense of Southeast Alaska when proposals are on the table like the bridge and not allow the spinmeisters to turn this project or any other into something that’s so negative,’ Palin said.”

Ketchikan Daily News 9-28-06

Or, how about this?:

After federal funding had been slashed, Palin was asked if she was still in support of funding the project.  She said:

Yes. I would like to see Alaska’s infrastructure projects built sooner rather than later. The window is now-while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist.

….So, if Congress had gone along and coughed up what Stevens and Young had asked for, guess what….that bridge to nowhere would have become a reality during the Palin administration.  She supported the bridge every step of the way…until the funding was cut.  So we decided to say, “Thanks, but no thanks.  If we want a bridge we’ll build it ourselves?!”   Is that like the failed earmark version of “You can’t fire me….I quit!”

It’s going to a long journey to election day if our useless media stenographers have their way.

At the Great Orange Satan, the left coaster, and Open Left.

Ouch. That’s gonna leave a mark.

Not so different fiddlers, same dance:

Police raid RNC protest sites in Twin Cities

…On Saturday afternoon, law agents surrounded 951 Iglehart Av. in St. Paul where members of I-Witness Video, a New York-based group that monitors police conduct during protests, were staying. They were detained and handcuffed but eventually freed without charges…

tiny URL

Massive police raids on suspected protestors in Minneapolis

…This is truly repugnant, extreme police behavior designed to intimidate protesters, police critics and others, and it ought to infuriate anyone and everyone who cares about basic liberties.

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

More Protesters Arrested in the Twin Cities

…Glenn Greenwald: So what were they charged with?

Bruce Nestor: They were charged with conspiracy to commit riot, which is about as bullshit a charge — about as thin a charge — as you could possibly come up with. And I say that as a lawyer.

Glenn Greenwald: How do you distinguish between that and a protest?

Bruce: You can’t. It basically criminalizes political advocacy. I mean, the essence of conspiracy law is if a single individual takes an overt act towards accomplishing an illegal goal such as purchasing a brick, and the police then claim that someone else in his group has an intent to throw that brick, then everyone who advocates that you attend that demonstration…

Glenn: Even if you’re not intending to commit that crime…

Bruce: …even though you’re not intending to commit the crime, could all be charged with conspiracy….

It’s their party and they’ll desecrate the Constitution if they want to.

Heaven protect us from long (and short) haired protesters with large puppets and smart mouths. Puh-leaze.

Chilhowee, Missouri hosted it’s annual parade at noon today, as part of their fall festival. The small town in the southwest corner of Johnson County has a population of 329 (2000 census). Entries for the parade started lining up around 10:30 a.m. The parade route is just a few blocks long. The number of individuals walking in the parade in support of political candidates approached the number of the total population of Chilhowee.

Chris Benjamin, Democratic candidate in the 31st Senate District, speaking with parade volunteers.

Steve Shippy (D) (left center, wearing a yellow shirt), candidate for Johnson County Treasurer, with his large entourage of volunteers – all wearing campaign t-shirts, truck, and trailer. This is a typical parade setup in our area.

Volunteers line up at the start of the parade. Everyone has (and develops) their own technique for carrying and distributing candidate stickers and other campaign chum. Candy for the local kids lining the parade route is an expectation placed on all candidates. A volunteer is sent ahead on the parade route to distribute paper bags emblazoned with the candidate’s sticker to distribute to children so they can conveniently carry all the candy they manage to pick up.

Chris Benjamin working the crowd. He takes time to shake hands, introduce himself by name, and have a short conversation. An energetic campaigner, he managed to shake almost every adult hand along the parade route.

Kristi Kenney’s volunteers toss a particularly popular piece of campaign chum (at least with children) – soft foam balls with her camapaign logo on them. Kristi Kenny is the Democratic candidate in the 120th Legislative District.

OK, I may have to move to Kansas City, just so I can be in Emanuel Cleaver’s district. I’d have more chances to get to hear him speak.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m happy to be in Lacy Clay’s district. I appreciate his progressive voting record, and besides he’s no slouch as a speaker himself. But Cleaver’s in a class of his own as a speaker.

The first time I heard him speak was in a video that Blue Girl posted here. I laughed then I cried. Here’s a man who honed his rhetorical skills for a few decades in Baptist churches, and they’re sharp as a razor.

OK, I may have to move to Kansas City, just so I can be in Emanuel Cleaver’s district. I’d have more chances to get to hear him speak. He knows how express the dissatisfaction and anger all of us feel, but with such sadness and such passion in his voice that we realize it anew.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m happy to be in Lacy Clay’s district. I appreciate his progressive voting record, and besides, he’s no slouch as a speaker himself. But Cleaver’s in a class of his own as a speaker.

The first time I heard him speak was in a video that Blue Girl posted here. I laughed then I cried. Here’s a man who honed his rhetorical skills for a few decades in Baptist churches, and they’re sharp as a razor.

(Unfortunately, my photographic skills are not sharp as a razor. Please excuse them.)

Correction: Cleaver is a Methodist.

And by Quayle, I mean an inexperienced, weak vice-presidential candidate. And that’s what Sarah Palin brings to the table – almost no experience in governance even in her own state.  I might add that Alaskan Republicans could be the most corrupt in the country, and Sarah Palin is close with them, even Republican Senator Ted Stevens after he was indicted. She’s actually under an ethics investigation right now.

What a weak, desperate move.

UPDATE: Obama’s response:

“Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency.  Governor Palin shares John McCain’s commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade, the agenda of Big Oil and continuing George Bush’s failed economic policies — that’s not the change we need, it’s just more of the same,” said Bill Burton, Obama Campaign Spokesman.

UPDATE II: In a CNBC interview earlier this month, Palin admitted that she didn’t even know what the VP does:

“But as for that VP talk all the time, I’ll tell ya, I still can’t answer that question until somebody answers for me, what is it exactly that the VP does every day?” – Sarah Palin, 8/1/08, CNBC, “Kudlow and Company”