This is pure Romnesia. I should know. I'm a Massachusetts resident and I lived through both disasters, one directly affecting my town. Many people remember the ferocious Mother's Day Storm that ripped through Massachusetts in May of 2006, dropping about 15 inches of water on my town of Amesbury. There was also an explosion at a chemical plant in Danvers around Thanksgiving.
And in both cases, Willard Romney asked for federal assistance, but apparently now the quarter billionaire believes federal disaster aid is immoral.
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Right through the center of Amesbury is the Mill Yard. It was once the hub of a town that made horse carriages and top hats, with factories powered by small dam on the Pow Wow River, a tributary of the Merrimack River.
Let me describe and then show you (I don't know how to embed this video) how bad the flooding was downtown. Luckily, our Mayor, was a Lt. Col. in the Mass. National Guard and he managed to get a detachment downtown that sandbagged and dug a trench so the dam holding back the Pow Wow wouldn't be breached. You can get into the semantics of whether the National Guard is controlled by the commonwealth in this instance or the federal government, which ultimately is in charge. They also wear the uniforms of the United States and not the Commonwealth of Massachusetts so I guess that makes them a federal asset.
That's just my town. We personally made out with very little damage, mostly water flooding our chimney which was not capped at the time. Live and learn. We had some minor flooding which was easily sucked up by my trusty Sears shop-vac. Others were not so lucky.
A sewage treatment plant upstream in Haverhill was breached, sending a veritable shitstorm of 35 million gallons down the Merrimack and into the Atlantic Ocean.
Driving North on 495 through Lawrence, it looked like a war zone. Much of the city appeared underwater. The Merrimack also had flooded farther upstream in Lowell as well. The town of Peabody was also hit hard with flooding so bad that residents were seen in sailboats where there were once streets.
And guess what? Mitt Romney made an inappropriatejoke about it:
On Good Morning America the next day, Romney described the flooding as "almost Biblical" and said "We're sort of making jokes about Noah and taking two of each kind of animal because we haven't ever seen rain like this."
As horrible as his lame joke was, Mitt was already sitting on millions of federal dollars left over from FEMA aid for Hurricane Katrina when Massachusetts took on some displaced people. Keep in mind that what you are reading is from the conservative Lowell Sun, a paper that just two years earlier had heartily endorsed George W. Bush for reelection:
We find it inconceivable that Gov. Mitt Romney claims the state can do nothing to help those residents still struggling to rebuild homes and businesses after the May flood.
Massachusetts is sitting on millions in unspent emergency funds from Hurricane Katrina and more than $1 billion in cash reserves, yet Romney has failed to even respond to the Lowell delegation's requests to discuss additional aid for victims.
The governor's spokesman -- since Romney can't be bothered to comment now that the photo opportunities have dried up even though some residents' basements haven't -- said the state will not consider spending its own money for flood victims until it's clear how much cash the federal government will give.
Romney declined to use those funds for people in need of temporary housing. Instead, the pretend President went to New Orleans to tour damage from Hurricane Isaac with Bobby Jindal.
MAJOR PROPS to Daily Kos member TayTay who wrote this diary here six years ago. Also to Jed Lewison for his piece on Pretend President Romney.
So we continue with the Pretend President who managed to thank those first responders in New Orleans but who bashed President Obama for doing the same this year:
As he thanks those first responders, I hope Mr. Romney will reconsider his words from just two months ago, when he mocked President Obama for seeking more funding for first responders.
"He (President Obama) says we need more fireman, more policeman, more teachers," Romney said on June 8 of this year. "Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It's time for us to cut back on government and help the American people."
Maybe with his tour today, Romney will realize just how wrong he was to mock President Obama for wanting to hire more first responders. But of course this really isn't about them, it's about the photo-op, and while Romney will make a big show of thanking them for their service, all the thank yous in the world don't make up for a pink slip. And if Mitt Romney gets his way in November, that's exactly what a lot of the people he sees today will get.
A few month later, a chemical plant in Danvers, exploded:
The massive chemical explosion at a Danvers printing plant early this morning became the equivalent of a 10-alarm fire, with rescuers from more than 30 cities and towns rushing in the predawn darkness to a blast that reverberated as far away as New Hampshire.
The force of the explosion damaged some 90 buildings in a half-mile radius, knocking homes off foundations, splintering glass and cracking chimneys. Twenty-five may be a total loss. Town building inspectors went door-to-door through the Danversport neighborhood, tagging unsafe houses with orange markers that read: "No entry."
Yet despite a towering fireball, flying splinters of glass and crumbled bricks, no one was seriously hurt or killed. About 10 people were taken to local hospitals with cuts and bruises.
I said, Romney "bragged" in my headline. Want proof? How about this press release by Eric Etch A Sketch Fehrnstrom just five days later?
Governor Mitt Romney today requested a Small Business Administration (SBA) disaster declaration following the Nov. 22 explosion in a Danversport neighborhood. The early morning blast at a chemical plant impacted nearly 100 homes and businesses and left almost 400 residents homeless.
"The peaceful routines of neighborhood life were shattered by this violent and so far unexplained event," said Romney. "In seeking federal assistance, our aim is to obtain maximum financial support as soon as possible for the residents and businesses devastated by this explosion."
To help residents and businesses rebuild, the Governor requested that the Small Business Administration (SBA) declare Essex County a disaster area for Physical and Economic Injury. SBA loans would provide an important source of financing for uninsured or under-insured commercial and residential members of the community.
In review, Mitt Romney requested federal disaster relief twice, told an inappropriate joke after a devastating flood, declined to aid those impacted even though he had a reserve of billion dollars in the rainy day fund as well as millions left over in Katrina aid. He then went to Louisiana as a pretend President and showed concern for victims of a hurricane and thanked first responders, which he would criticize President Obama for doing the same thing six years later. And last but not least, Romney mouthpiece Eric Fehrnstrom sent out a press release requesting federal aid in the form of SBA loans. How you going to Etch a Sketch that away Willard?
Now let us also consider that Mr. debt is immoral has built his entire presidential campaign on his business experience which was based entirely on debt because this exactly what a leveraged buyout is.