Will articles like these - and sadly there will be many more - drop his "rating" into the teens?
By Carey GillamMonGillamMon May 7, 3:38 PM ET
A shortage of trucks, helicopters and other equipment -- all sent to the war in Iraq -- has hampered recovery in a U.S. town obliterated by a tornado, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said on Monday.
"There is no doubt at all that this will slow down and hamper the recovery," Sebelius, a Democrat, told Reuters in Kansas where officials said the statewide death toll had risen to 12 on Monday.
"Not having this equipment in place all over the state is a huge handicap," Sebelius said.
Full article
HEREAll states are facing shortages in their in guard people power, equipment and money so it can all be used to fund king george's madness. Some states have few fire personnel on hand as many are in the guard. Ditto local police forces.
From McClatchy
Guard faces shortages in dealing with natural disastersBy Nancy A. Youssef
McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON - With much of their equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan, state National Guards face profound shortages in responding to natural disasters, particularly as they get ready for the hurricane season, which begins June 1.
The Guard has been shipping gear to hurricane-prone states in an effort to ease concerns, but a large disaster affecting several states would tax the Guard's ability to respond, according to National Guard officials and government reports. Some deficiencies aren't correctable. The Texas National Guard's helicopters, for example, are in Iraq and can't be replaced easily...
That problem is likely to worsen in the event of a major hurricane, which generally affects a much larger area than a tornado does. Guard officials in hurricane-prone states say they're ready, but only if they can get help from other states. That will slow critical response times, emergency managers say....
Guard and other government agencies have been warning of the problem for months.
"Most of the units in the Army and Air National Guard are under-equipped for the jobs and the missions that they have to perform" domestically, Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard bureau, told Congress last month. "Can we do the job? Yes, we can. But the lack of equipment (means it takes) longer to do that job, and lost time translates into lost lives, and those lost lives are American lives."
Full article
HEREAll for what? and please - if you are a right winger reading this - don't tell me it's because we don't want "them" to follow "us" here. That's pure bullshit. King George has damaged this country and created more terrorism in the world than anyone we can remember....
