While browsing through Crooks & Liars, I saw a link to a story from the blog Hill Country Gal. I read the comments, and it turns out the story is not a new one, only new to the traditional media. In the comment section, Donnie McDaniel, of The Katrinacrat Blog laments:
The bad part of this Hilly, is that I posted on this a long time back. Back some time ago, I did a post on FEMA and their toxic trailers! This is just getting out, and I did that post some time ago. It was known long ago, that the trailers were a problem. I will have to look back, but I will let you see the post I did and you can see for yourself how long this has been known.
Join me below for more.
See, this is the problem. The Iraq War is messing with us so badly that our own major tragedy, our own national disgrace on the Gulf Coast is getting buried and when not buried, distorted beyond all measure.
But before I rant further, let's go to the story. Hill Country Girl links to a CBS story showing how toxic formaldehyde fumes are making children living in FEMA trailers sick (yes still in the trailers, after almost 2 years, still there, heckuvajob they're doing, and there's a bit of money tied up in that Iraq supplemental bill for Katrina recovery, but that's another story):
(CBS) WASHINGTON Earlier this week, CBS News chief investigative reporter Armen Keteyian reported that 21 months after Hurricane Katrina, there is a public health crisis along the Gulf Coast.
Children are getting sick after prolonged exposure to fumes from the toxic chemical formaldehyde used in construction of thousands of FEMA travel trailers.
In the wake of that report, there are now calls for a congressional investigation, as well as new information that FEMA may have known about the problem more than a year ago.
You know, I don't even need to quote the rest of the story. Of course FEMA is saying everything is perfectly safe, perfectly fine. We know this story. In New York City we heard it from Christine Todd Whitman, and now so many folks have sickened and died, but hey, that must have been from something else.
So children are being exposed to poison and FEMA says not to worry. Children still living in trailers and HUD has little to say. And, completely unrelated to anything, folks are still repeating the lie that Hurricane Katrina was responsible for the damage in the region, that it was a natural disaster -- when we now know it was a man-made disaster. But hey, they're all doing a heckuvajob, so I really shouldn't complain.
Check out Hill Country Girl's blog, check out her eloquent and poetic condemnation of what is happening. Think about what Donnie McDaniel has to say, that he wrote about this quite a while back, and always it seems new as the dawn.
The Dems don't want to stand up to Bush to stop this obscene war. There is a connection here, a big one. They're going to let Bush spend billions of dollars so we can have a nice ol' Democratic majority in 2008.
And soldiers will die. And children will sicken and perhaps die. And the Gulf Coast will erode until there's no choices left but to watch the destruction and pay the price for waiting, all of America will pay, the industries and natural resources of the region serve the entire nation.
So yes, let's wait. Let's wait until we have ... what? What are we waiting for? We must impeach these folks before they do even more heckuvajobs.