Daily News:N.Y.ers a-maized by corn protection (Homeland Security funding)

Honcho sez fields more vulnerable than N.Y.C.

WASHINGTON - The Homeland Security bureaucrat who shortchanged New Yorkers' safety by $80 million implied yesterday that guarding a Nebraska cornfield from an Al Qaeda attack is the same as putting a cop with a gun on the Brooklyn Bridge.

"When you are protecting agriculture in the Midwest, you are protecting the citizens of New York City," Assistant Secretary Tracy Henke told C-Span's "Washington Journal."

Henke - a political appointee in charge of doling out $1.7 billion in security grants to cities under the highest threat of attack - cut funds to New York City and Washington by 40%, even though both are considered Al Qaeda's top terror targets.

...snip...

Henke is a Republican political operative and protégé of former Attorney General John Ashcroft with no background in military or intelligence. She previously worked for two GOP senators from her home state of Missouri, which collected 25% more security cash from her office this year.

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/423228p-357145c.html

unbelievable after using our tragedy as an excuse for everything.

Who needs the Feds anyway?

and New York is a blue state, do the math. Its the same thing they did with New Orleans and not declaring it a disaster area, New Orleans voted dem. Everything is political with them, it's the culture of corruption. Gotta pay to play with these people.

Hughes and Rove wanting a 2nd aid concert outside of the East and 'more midwestern and less NYC in appeal' (I remember it being on the lower left-hand side of a 2-page spread)

the story was incredible with all the implications of anti-NYC feeling in bushco

and I remember Nickles, the republican senator from OK going to the Oval Office to complain that NYC was getting more money than OK did after the OKC bombing (I think he was threatening to hold up the NYC money until OK got more)

1. The OKC bombing was pulled off essentially by Americans,
2. The fellows that pulled it off were certainly not liberals but rather extreme right-wingers,
and 3. Most of the people involved actually got caught and tried.

Sounds to me like this OK boy wants the money and thinks he has a good pretext.

Good citizens of NYC, are you really surprised at this shortchanging? My gut feeling is that it's all a win-win for Bushco. If there is no attack, they can claim to be keeping America safe. If there is one, they'll try to use it as an excuse to grab even more power and suspend even more constitutionally-protected rights.

Peace
PsA

on edit: clarification of 2. above

a measly amount like $740 million for homeland security. He said a LOT MORE is needed.

Of course, with King GW's War, we don't have the money. :puke:

and as we all know, Missouri is a huge terror target. :sarcasm:

snip: Henke is a Republican political operative and protégé of former Attorney General John Ashcroft with no background in military or intelligence. She previously worked for two GOP senators from her home state of Missouri, which collected 25% more security cash from her office this year.

"It is impossible to tie those two \ together. Absolutely impossible," Henke said. :crazy:

Dream on, Hincky-dink. :grr:

That ought to keep us warm for centuries! Remember?
911!911!911! Ah, the glow of recognition!

Check out the NY Post scary cover:

and then tossed aside like a used condom after a tryst with a pox-ridden prostitute.

NYC deserves better, and to be blunt - given the nature of the john - so did the prostitute.

Peace
PsA

on Washington Journal on C-Span yesterday morning?

Do we have credible information of attempts to destroy our cornfields?

the goal here is to turn DHS into another Republican pork distribution agency. The "first responders" (volunteer firemen) in Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri etc. haven't been getting what they consider their "fair share" of these government funds. They want MORE, not because there's an iota of a chance they'll be attacked by "terraists", but because they're RED STATES, damn it, and RED STATES are what put this pResident in the White House (along with unbridled voter fraud and theft).
I don't think the Repiglickens are singling out one specific company here, they just want to spread this "guv'mint money" out to as many of their "loyal supporters" (read: brain-dead lackeys) as possible. We can't have those BLUE STATE communists getting all of that money, even if they ARE "target rich". They'd just spend it on "welfare queens" and wedding gifts for homosexuals. :eyes: Of course every mid-western cow town will have the BEST is bio-terrorism gear (including 4 wheelers and other "toys" the locals can play with). ;)
In short, DHS has become another cash drawer for the Repiglickens to rifle through. They don't give a damn about where the real targets are or when they'll be hit. All they care about is making sure their ignorant "base" gets more than their fair share (as always) at the expense of the areas that actually are under scrutiny from terrorists.
This WILL come back to bite the bush administration, their insipid actions always do, but we'll then be given a litany of excuses, cover-ups and diversions, as always, to take the heat off of their idiotic "policy". :puke: These guys are as easy to read as, "My Pet Goat". It's always the same with them, it's all about money, NOT the actual problem at hand.

that is what I get out of this too! Besides, while we eye corn, will they be doing something bigger? :crazy:

We will have to fight them in the soy bean fields.

That is hysterical!!!:rofl:

Thanks. You've made my day.:applause:

Thanks, I needed that.

the local squirrels have been getting rather uppity lately, too. Can I get some help with them? And with whatever's digging up my squash plants?

I live 2 miles from the San Andreas fault, and I'm a lot more worried about that letting go .

the corn will now breath easier knowing they are being protected from Osama Bin-Laden... as are The bison of Grand Teton who have lived in fear of al-Qaeda long enough.

hey - I've got 12 tomato plants, peas, squash, brussel sprouts, basil and CORN that are "terrorized" (also assorted flowers, berries and grapes) -- do you think I could get some Homeland Insecurity money to protect them? I swear I heard a rabbit talking about wanting to take flying lessons.

or better yet, how about $5k so I can put up a fence to protect my home from knuckle dragger next door?

that the corn farms are dependent on New Yorkers? eh?

These clowns see these security grants as a cash cow. The person put in charge of it is clearly corrupt, and he'd rather give the money to people that he knows- which, probably by coincidence, are people in his home state- than to people who actually need it.

It's just corruption. NYC having its security underfunded is a byproduct of that.

"Henke's claim that food stocks "risk" terror attack echoed comments this week by her boss, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. He had said New Yorkers are safer when "we protect agriculture in Wisconsin that is providing the food that New Yorkers eat."

She just echoed the earlier comments of Homeland Security's resident genius Chertoff.

(edited for clarity)

They don't want to do ANYTHING to help her, either. Snub New Yorkers in general, snub Hillary in particular. Show 'em who's boss, after all. There aren't any republi-CON senators to hurt - from New York, anyway. They're represented by Democrats, so fuck 'em. AND yes, they're a blue state. We didn't do all that great on this score out here in California, either.

in order to get red states back on their side for the election.

The blue states get upset, and the red states in turn get defensive and angry, and go to the polls to vote for the Republicans.

And there's the side benefit of getting a Republican senator re-elected in New York, because he's standing up for them.

Ingenious, really.

I'm generalizing, I know, but based on what I've heard in the past few days, I could see it panning out this way.

wildlower

They'd have to ELECT one FIRST in order to RE-ELECT one!

not Senator.

wildflower

:freak: I'm in the middle of an alfalfa field and Al-Qaeda's planning to bomb my farm! Cover me! Lord help me I think I see an Eyerakee hiding behind the pig trough.:freak: I just KNOW the terrorists want to destroy my corn field!:freak:

The terrorists won't be happy until they've broken down all of America into individual molecules.

Defend yourself out there in the corn and alfalfa fields. We in NYC will be praying for you. :hi:

and how it will actually be used, but it is a valid point to protect the food supply... I would suspect though this would be somewhere during the processing and not directly on the actual corn in the field. Ports also need better security monitoring. and our borders need a tighter security.

hyperbole in the article?

Go figure.

but not from terraists. From the satans at Monsanto who keep genetically manipulating it and then trying to feed it to the people in NY.

How many people know what Monsanto is all about?

You see, nothing changes. Economic history remains just the same.

I suffered once in Econ from the Corn Laws in Great Britain. Dear god, not again.

(from Wikipedia)

The Corn Laws, in force between 1815 and 1846, were import tariffs ostensibly designed to "protect" British farmers and landowners against competition from cheap foreign grain imports. (In British English, the term "corn" means "grain" (the kernel), or specifically the primary grain crop of a country, which in England was wheat, not maize as implied by the North American usage of the term.) These laws are often viewed as a cornerstone of British Mercantilism. According to Prof. David Cody <1>, they:

... were designed to protect English landholders by encouraging the export and limiting the import of corn when prices fell below a fixed point. They were eventually abolished in the face of militant agitation by the Anti-Corn Law League, formed in Manchester in 1839, which maintained that the laws, which amounted to a subsidy, increased industrial costs. After a lengthy campaign, opponents of the law finally got their way in 1846—a significant triumph which was indicative of the new political power of the English middle class.

Britain at the time was the most economically developed country in the world—there were no other rivals other than off-land British companies. The "protection" thus was used not against foreign imports, but against cheap rival British imports that would have severely cut into the profit margins of British landowners. The Corn Laws, in reality, represented the power of the British aristocracy, who were the landowners and therefore the crop producers. The repeal of the Corn Laws reduced not only the income generated by crops, but also the political power that land ownership had historically represented. The debate over the Corn Laws was a crossroads in the transition of Britain from a feudalist society, to a more modern, industrial one.


Debate and repeal
The debate over the Corn Laws split the Conservatives and Whigs. The Conservatives represented the landed class who greatly benefited from the agricultural protections offered by the Corn Law. The Corn Laws were designed to keep prices high after the Napoleonic War and therefore many feared a substantial drop in prices (which in fact didn't happen). The Whigs, however, were business owners. Following David Ricardo's economic views they believed a decrease in the price of grain would allow them to lower wages and increase profits.

more...,

from some reading, I have the impression that for many in the England the result of the laws was high bread prices for the poor.....and the returning footsoldiers from the Napoleonic Wars who got no help as veterans from the British government....didn't the prices and other things lead to a great deal of unrest and fears that there might be a revolution in England????

was such a monumental bore and non informational the entire class got snarky. It would be great if the prof had answered the great question you raise in your post. Instead, we just got more crap about economic theory, but no relating to actual history.

This was a GRADUATE level class, mind you, not an undergrad survey course. The prof SHOULD have related important political events to the prevaling economic theories. Instead, she just spouted them off.

She later admitted to being alifelong Republican (no wonder). Nobody wanted to take her on because she was a nun in her late 60s and not too well.

bacterial, viral and fungal attacks would be devastating.
Do I think for one new york minute that this is what they (HSA) have in mind? hell no. Heck, they are willing to shut down a meat company BECAUSE they want to test each cow for mad cow disease.
No, this is a way to send $$$$$ to political donors. nothing less, nothing more.

yet more money from the u.s. treasury....they don't even bother to hide it. :mad:

They are covering for what they know is coming. And it won't be in NYC or DC. They are countering their blame before some city in Florida gets destroyed. That's also what the sudden arrests in London and Toronto are about. "See it was everywhere, but we are a bigger country, but we almost caught them before they destroyed Orlando. One more phone tap and we would have had them. Everyone gets these RFID implants now and we will catch them next time."

"Oh and by the way, we are now dropping 40 nukes on Iran in retaliation for Orlando. You know we gave them every chance to make nice just last week, and they thumbed their noses at us, so we are bombing them to Hell right now. We were lucky and just happened to have 40 nuklar bombers all gassed up and roaring to go right there in Iraq. Now brother Jeb has a few words to yell in his bullhorn at you from that pile of rubble that was Orlando this morning."

"Bring em on!"

Bridge will grow back next season? This has got to be some sort of twisted Freeper logic.

If we were in any actual danger, I don't expect it would look like this at all, mm? :)

If E85 is successful we should expect an occupation by Halliburton.

You know, all you folk on the coasts and big cities are right. The midwest doesn't deserve to win any sports championships. And the midwest doesn't deserve any protection from terrorists because why would terrorists consider going there, right? Its not like anyone there has an IQ above 80, right? Typical coastal/big city attitude toward those who they consider inferior which comes through loud and clear to us midwesterners.

:grr:

I'm afraid of the Republican cult.

The greedy pigs want money for stupid security projects when what people across the country really need is health care and access to good education. They are sinking us into debt, just because they can.

If we look at where homeland security money is going you can bet your life that it is to those states/regions that have good little bushbots in place.

majority of money should go to the coasts, but take another look at what's being said above.

If you're from the midwest you already had to have been aware of the rank prejudice and occasional ridicule which the media and the coastal/big city continually exhibits toward us.

As far as where the Homeland Security money is going? Its not going to the states and regions that have good little bushbots any more than its going to blue states. Its going to those CEOs and corporations which support Bush. Houston and Dallas is probably the closest it gets to the midwest. Omaha and all the "other redheaded stepchildren" are nothing more than a temporary pit stop on the way to its real destination.

Oh and the Nancy Giles commentary? Mostly, the big cities had the forethought to arrange construction of nuclear powerplants out in the cornfields rather than downtown L.A. Have some corn that's been exposed to nuclear radiation, dear...

and tells New Yorkers to 'choke on their sour grapes,' it doesn't do much to engender good feelings, does it?

I mean, I heard that quote while driving home this morning, and my first reaction was, 'Okay, fuck Omaha.'

And the 'Choke on your sour grapes' attitude has not been contradicted by anyone in Omaha so far - so for now, my first reaction stands.

- as

ours did..and our co-workers..and we are just lucky the nuclear plants weren't hit by planes! the giant nuclear plants...have you had to get the pills to fill your thyroid in case of a terrorist attack on nuclear plants?? we have...

and to be fair..NY NJ Conn and Pa and Calif send our federal tax money more than any other states to subsidize the midwest and south...

so don't go there please...and yes i am a NJ native and live both in NJ and fla..but i also lived in Kansas City for many years, and Milwaukee, and Ariz , and Dallas, and Kansas Calif and Fla...and there is nothing in any of the above that would be a target over the so many icons in NY !!

remember our ports bring you most of what is imported to this country that you need and our ports export your grain and your agriculture...for your survival!

this was a political hatchet job...and if you can't see that..i don't know what kind of glasses you are wearing ..but up the prescription please!

fly

We should be grateful that you allow us to be participate in your country. :sarcasm:

Thanks for illustrating my point.

i paid in Kansas and missouri...as compared to NJ..please feel feel to pick up your portion of what i pay for you!!

anytime!!

and as for national security, i worked for one of the airlines involved and it was my co-workers who died on 9/11..how many of your co-workers in the mid west were lost??

and my hometown of Middletown NJ lost the most people outside NYC.,,.those were people i grew up with ..and parents of kids my son went to school with..how many of your friends and family were lost ??

in fact a man on my street lost his son...so please share with us..how many fields were destroyed in the midwest on 9/11 in the midwest??

and how many do you think are vunerable now/?

i can easily share with you hundreds of icon targets there are here in NJ Ny Conn and Pa..pray tell me what would be the icons lost in say prarrrie village Mo..or leawood Kansas...where i used to live..personally i can't think of a one!!

fly

Granted that was done by white American men, but it was still a terrorist attack that killed a bunch of people. Or is it not considered terrorism when white folks do it? Sadly, it didn't seem like New Yorkers or anyone else cared a whole lot about it.

Like I said.... the bastards who hit OK City were right-wing types. I don't think those boyos are nearly so antsy now with the God-fearing, law-abiding Christian soldier we got running the country now. (Damn, every single one of those descriptive terms was BS - amazing.) And one reason we're less concerned about OKC today is that most of the guys who did it were caught, tried, convicted, and in one case, executed. I'm not worried at all about Timothy McVeigh planning another attack.

As far as catching the guys who did 9/11... well... on one hand, it's clear the swine in charge of it could have been caught years ago, but wasn't. On the other hand, look how long Eric Rudolph remained at large, and that was when we still had reasonably competent leadership. And I live in Atlanta, which got its funding increased, and I'll bet any amount of money that the 1996 Centennial Park attack never once entered into the equation (which appears to be, in rough terms: amount of GOP support = amount of security $$). Of course, I'm not much more concerned about Rudolph than McVeigh, at this point.

Which makes NYC's point far stronger, actually.

Peace
PsA

NYC doesn't need the funding, but a lot of people here are under the impression that places in the Midwest don't need funding or deserve it. However, I do agree that the cuts in some places and raises in others are politically motivated. Also, if you want to get technical, The guys that hijacked the four airliners were right-wing nut types, and I'm not too worried about them doing it again. I do worry about our nation's food supply which would be an equal if not worse (better?) target. I don't necessarily mean Nebraska, but any food producing region.

AND PHILLY AND OUR PORTS THAT ARE OPEN... are under far greater threat and have been cut 40% of homeland security money..that is ludicrous!

all the port cities basically have been cut if they are so called BLUE STATES..this is bullshit!!
a 40% CUT IN NY and an increase in Wyoming, that is bullshit utter bullshit!
and Ny is not just NYcity...its Buffalo a entry from Canada..and Mich got the cuts as well...tell us where the dangers lie in Wyoming??

there are millions of ppl in NYC but the state is heavily populated as well..and there are what 200 people in Wyoming to protect??

please this is just nonsence..
how many subways in Wyoming, transporting how many??

how many statue of liberties in Wyoming??

or how many Lincoln centers in wyoming??

how many Nuke power plants that can kill millions upon millions of people in wyoming..instantly!!??

hiw many brooklyn bridges , washington bridges, verrazano bridges in wyoming??

how many yankee stadiums in wyoming??

how many medowlands huge huge stadium complexes in wyoming??


how many ellis islands does wyoming have??

how many Metropolitan Museum of Natural Arts does wyoming have?
or the hundreds of museums nyc has..historical museums..
how many Empire state buildings does wyoming have??

how man Broadways does wyoming have??

oh the list could go on and on...
i believe i made my point!

grain goes to New Orleans, not NYC.

Found the chart of actual allocations.

New York City: $124,450.00
Kansas City: $9,240.00
Omaha: $8,330.00

Here's the link:

http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/grants_st-local_fy06.pdf

New York City is still getting the largest amount far and beyond every other metro area or cornfield. Which I do not have any problems with at all. Just wish some would extend as much respect to the midwest.

not the statue of liberty.

It all makes sense now.

Unfortunately, they won't be allowed to decide how to spend it.

Midwesterners, unfortunately for Bush, are practical people. Pick any three-horse town in the Midwest, drop ten million in DHS money on the mayor's desk and tell her she can spend it any way she likes, and she's not going to buy anti-bioterrorism equipment. She will replace her fire department's equipment, buy new police cars, maybe buy a four-wheel-drive ambulance, and upgrade her departments' radios. She might even buy a snorkel truck--they're too expensive for farming communities to buy routinely, but being able to get above a fire in a tall structure would make fighting fires in barns and grain elevators much easier and it would probably lower fire insurance premiums in that town. Anyway, she'd buy things the community will use.

This purchasing pattern has a problem: the companies who make that equipment, with the exception of Motorola who's already a reliable GOP contributor, aren't very big so they can't afford to kick back a lot to the RNC. (Read: low return on investment.) On the other hand, the companies who make anti-bioterror equipment belong to Dubya's friends.

Bush has two reasons for funding all this weird shit for midwest communities. He naturally wants to reward his friends by not only bestowing brazillions of dollars in DHS money upon them, but by forcing these small towns to spend money to keep the shit viable. A lot of that equipment has expiration dates, especially activated-carbon air filters once you unwrap them. The more important reason is that Bush likes to punish people who aren't completely on his side. Like lawyers, and blue states.

for our ballistic missile fleet. You could make a case that it might be a target.

Kansas City is a major, and I mean major, rail hub. I've seen maps of our railroad system based on ton-miles, and it seems that all tracks lead to Kansas City. Protecting key rail hubs seems reasonable to me.

Wyoming is the source of a very high percentage of our coal. We generate 40% of our electricity by burning coal, as much as many people here object on environmental and global warming grounds (including myself). If there are key targets out there, Wyoming may need extra help.

The problem, as far as I see it, is that there simply isn't enough money in the Homeland Security budget to cover the pork and the needed programs.

Bush seems to think that our anti-terrorism budget consists primarily of funds for the Iraq war.

He is happy to leave our ports, our infrastructure, our key symbolic sites and our citizens insufficiently protected.

and we have Earle Naval Weapons Station, here in Nj that houses a big portion of weapons meant to protect the nation ...
and the Ny corridor of air space and that over calif shorelines protects or is supposed to... those of you in the middle!

please this is so silly.,...are you going to tell me that Kansas city deserves more Homeland security money than NYC , Washington, Boston, and Los Angeles and San Fran and San diego...and Chicago..that is more than silly!

it is ridiculous!

we are the finacial captiol of the world basically and my neihbors in Nj all work on the flooor or have seats on the stock exchange..on 9/11 they were all pigeon holed in the basement of the stock exchange with no communications while you sat in your living room and just watched...we lived through the smoke and the fear of our loved ones on that day..i personally took off out of newark ahead of flt 93..and i can tell you the fear my family went through..you could only watch on tv!! we experienced it!

fly

ignorance of my fellow americans!

i have no fear of so called terrorists..i fear those who would take off their shoes daily without questions to the crap going inside the bellies of airplanes that is not being checked..and they think they are safe..i live in fear of americans who refuse to stand up and demand the nuclear power plants are protected, i live in fear of cargo moving all over this nation that is not checked because so many don't "get it" even now..i fear those who think protecting a field in kansas is more impoirtant than protecting our ports!

fly

multiple small and medium size towns in the vicinity. I suggest you take ownership of your own ignorance before castigating us midwesterners from your little pinnacle of self-perceived perfection.

IN THE NATION!

may i remind you....THREE mile island??

in fact the jets on the morning of 9/11 flew right over Indian point power plant in ny..and tens of millions would be killed if one was hit in the northeast..how many in kansas???????????

there are 3 huge power plants in NJ and in NY and NJ and Pa the population far exceeds missouri and kansas put together!!
4 in NY
5 in PA
1 in Conn
1 in mass
1 in maryland
6 in Illinois

1 in the corn fields of kansas
1 in the soybean fields of missouri

fly

Landmarks in Kansas City or near enough to be threatened?

Nelson Atkins Art Museum.
Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art
Royals Baseball Stadium which I happen to like a lot. I'm going to be like you for a minute and say, I don't care whether you think it has any value. I like it and that's enough.
The Harry Truman Museum is in nearby Independence.

I almost, but not quite, feel sorry for you. If you're that frightened of living on the east coast then move somewhere else. Your statements epitomize what I was talking about.

And by the way, a funny coincidence earlier. Right after I posted, my computer notified me I was under multiple attacks. You wouldn't know anything about that now would you?

ONLY IGNORANCE WITHIN!!

and i lived in K.C> for many years you couldn't make me go back there!

not if you paid me..to many stepford wives for me!!

fly

i am very aware of what is in KC...oh and my husband played ball for the Royals..so i know KC quite well!!

fly

COMPUTER SAVY... in fact ..i am computer illiterate basically..i turn it on ..if it doesn't work, its broke..and i call in a german computer guy my husband and i use to fix our computers..quite a thing to accuse someone of though.....sorry to disappoint you of my limited computer skills...

oh and by the way..i sat for 9 yrs in royals stadium..i know it well!!
i even knew Rush L when he was a gofer for the royals..and hubby and i were roomates with G B...

been there done that..

fly

art museum when they could be much more effective by striking at our seat of government, wall street and our largest population centers?

Those terror alerts really worked on you.

The homeland security plan is an outrageous giveaway to reward members of the Republican Cult.

... just when a clear-eyed caller accused her of being a know-nothing, political hack! (paraphrasing)

After a frozen moment, she invoked a few trite cliches about how she's protecting the U.S., but of course, never addressed the accusation.

fields.

:D