Thanks for Nothing, Texans Say

[Rose Siding]

snip>
.....{H}ere in the president's home state, in a region densely populated by energy and petrochemical industries with warm ties to the White House, consensus is that progress is being made in spite of the federal government, not because of it. Dissatisfaction with what is seen as a heartless Bush administration recovery effort is widespread.

"We need some compassionate conservatism," said Mark Viator, a chemical company official who is chairman of the Southeast Texas Recovery Coalition, a group of area leaders that has been lobbying Washington for assistance.
....
"Make no mistake about it: They don't care about you, and they don't care about what is happening in our communities," said Chester R. Jourdan Jr., executive director of the Southeast Texas Regional Planning Commission. Jourdan made his comments at a public meeting last week less than two hours after returning from a fruitless lobbying trip to the nation's capital.

"This went on deaf ears in D.C., deaf ears. One of the biggest challenges we have is the administration," he said.

Federal officials counter that the truth is more mundane: Compared with the calamity Katrina caused in Mississippi and Louisiana, Rita's toll on Texas is smaller and commands less attention, especially because the state is well on the road to recovery.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-rita25mar25,0,5823827.story?coll=la-home-nation


Somebody picked up the clue phone.
http://www.thepeopledrivenchurch.com.nyud.net:8090/images/phonebooth.jpg

[BrklynLiberal]

1. Does this mean that the Kool-aid's effect is wearing off?

[hedgehog]

2. I'd say they haven't seen anything , yet.

The maps from another thread yesterday showed that Beaumont, Texas will be permanently underwater very soon if sea levels rise as expected. Guess where about 90% of this nation's refining capacity is located?

[aquart]

3. Yet we are making no plans to relocate our capacity.

Just as we are making no plans for the crop changes and other land use differences that global warming will bring.

We have to hope that the inundations that bury our coastal cities (I'm in one of them) will also drown the populations as we have no place to put them.

The rich can go to their ski lodges in the snowless mountains.

[robbibaba]

4. Hey, come the rapture, no worries!

[Frank Cannon]

5. Memo to TXans: Bush doesn't give a rat's hind end about you

And if you ever thought he ever did, I've got some terrific real estate along the Gulf Coast you might be interested in purchasing.

As soon as your idiot Monkey King is kicked out of the White House, he's going to put that laughably fraudulent "ranch" in Crawford up for sale and move to a place with a much better climate and with much more "acceptable" neighbors...like, say, the Hamptons.

[hedgehog]

13. Maybe he's waiting until it's an ocean front estate.

You never know!

[SammyWinstonJack]

19. He never did! And most of us Texans knew that from the beginning.

If not, we should have. He left us with a huge deficit while he inherited the largest surplus in Texas history. He gave it away to his campaign contributors. Sound familiar? :rofl:

[DBoon]

6. They should quit whining and pull up them Texas bootstraps

What did they expect from a Republican?

[VegasWolf]

7. What? The repukes are whining about lack of guvmint handouts? Now

I've heard everything.

[last_texas_dem]

8. Those bashing Southeast Texans as Repukes need to

check their facts. Jefferson County (the county that includes both Beaumont and Port Arthur, the two cities this article is basically concerned with) voted for both Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004. We may not be progressive bastions but we aren't your typical Texas FReepers either (although we do have our share of FReepers, just like every other region of this country). We have a large blue-collar population and a high minority population. We have been experiencing high unemployment and population losses for years. The damage we had has been downplayed by the media; just because Rita bypassed Houston they seemed content to believe it caused little to no damage in our area. Any delusional fool who believes this ought to check out what happened to my hometown of Orange; there is damage that our city will never fully recover from. But the media was content to pretend that nothing happened as long as it was just us "marshlanders" who got hit.

Sorry for the rant, but to see this bullshit from DUers pisses me off.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

9. I see that kind of crap all the time on DU. Thanks for....

...posting what I was thinking!

[AnneD]

17. Texas bashing post on DU really chap my ass...

I seem to remember it was a Texas president (a REAL Texan) that signed the Civil Rights Act, got Head Start off the ground, and if I remember right did Medicare too.
Let me educate some of you Texas Bashers......Texas was blue until recently (influx of people from out of state started it). We were screaming for help when they were threatening to redistrict. Our state reps fled to NM and Okla to break quorum and were harassed by FBI and had warrants sworn out for them. Gee, what else can you do.
These bullshit posts piss me off to. It's bad enough we have to keep kicking GOP asses down here while people on this thread are trying to kick our asses too. Thanks for all the wonderful suppport you guys:sarcasm: And I'm not sorry for the rant. Enough is enough.

[MissWaverly]

22. Hey, I don't think anybody asks for help unless they need it

also I know that a great many evacuees were relocated to Texas which must also be a strain
on the budget, I am not math whiz but I believe that you rec'd more evacuees than there
are soldiers fighting in Iraq. The problem is and you must know this since he was your
governor is that he is all take and no give. He is now giving those trailers to the
people in Oklahoma, that's fine but there are still homeless in the Gulf Coast and
maybe he should be thinking about rebuilding more to help you out so that some of those
evacuees could go home.

[wordpix2]

10. say it loud & clear, "It's the war economy, stupid." Nothing is getting

done at home that should be done because of the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, the BushCo tax cuts for the rich, corporate welfare, tax breaks and no-bid contracts, and cuts to nearly all domestic programs.

[lovuian]

11. His Motto "I'll use you and abuse you"

Texans Wake up!!!

[Bukowski Fan]

12. There's more to this

I don't think this is just about the administration not caring about these people. I think this is about making sure those refineries don't recover. In doing so there will be less oil on the market and prices will continue to stay high.

[hedgehog]

14. It's one thing to restore housing and local infrastructure

but shouldn't the oil companies restore the refineries? After all, they closed down refineries all over the country to concentrate all their capacity in Beaumont the last thirty years.

[jwirr]

15. If this area is getting less help than NO I would say they are

then getting no help at all.

[AuntiBush]

21. That Sums it up Pretty Good

Really.

[brooklynite]

16. There's an important message here...

These folks aren't revolting against Bush and the GOP leadership; they see Federal politicians and bureaucrats as generically incompetent and/or corrupt, and don't distinguish between those who are Republican and those who are Democratic. If we want to tap into this anger, we need to present a vision of Democrats as clearly different.

[C_U_L8R]

18. Hey Texas

Your faux cowboy is messing with you...
he certainly doesn't seem to appreciate all you've
done for him... so what's the Texas way to deal with that?

(and just to be clear... I'm talking about treasonous red texas here.. DU hearts true blue texans)

[SoCalDem]

20. So.. you have a compound fracture of your leg?? TOUGH luck, bud

that other guy needs brain surgery...so you'll have to take care of your own problem.. George & his pals have one track minds, and you don't matter. Heck.. even the brain surgery guy doesn't concern them..Now if you're rich and want to donate some money to a pet campaign of theirs, they'll be happy to meet with you..

Got a problem..big or small..and 'yer on yer own, bud".

[loudsue]

23. There is NO SUCH THING as "compassionate conservatives"

Conservatives will bleed you 'til you're dry, and then swift-boat you because you messed up the rug.

Some day all the people will know this. As of now, only 36% still don't know it.

[suegeo]

24. "Make no mistake about it: They don't care about you,"

No Shyte Sherlock. They might only care about you if you're standing in their way, then they'll knock you out of the way.