How's this for chutzpah. Both U.S. senators from Oklahoma, Sen. James Inhofe and Sen. Tom Coburn in January voted against the supplemental appropriations bill to the FEMA disaster relief fund that was targeted to provide relief for the victims of Hurricane Sandy that tore into New York and New Jersey.
Inhofe called the Sandy appropriations bill a "slush fund" because it included infrastructure spending and funds for projects aimed at future disasters beyond Sandy.
Coburn voted against the Sandy relief fund because it wasn't offset by budget savings elsewhere.
Now comes the monster tornado that ripped through Moore, Oklahoma on Monday killing some 20 children and adults, leveling homes, an elementary school and other buildings with 200 mile an hour winds and Coburn said in a statement, "As a ranking member of the Senate committee that oversees FEMA, I can assure Oklahomans that any and all available aid will be delivered without delay".
As for Inhofe he "vowed" that the Moore Tornado victims wouldn't abuse federal aid as he said occurred in the aftermath of Sandy, (as if the victims of Sandy in New York and New Jersey weren't deserving of relief [as now Oklahomans will be] in the aftermath of the Moore Tornado).
Let's face it; these two yahoos are only concerned when disaster strikes their constituents and to hell with the victims beyond Oklahoma.
It's as if there are two Americas, "our good people in Oklahoma who are deserving of relief aid while those "Yankees" up north are just profligate moochers looking to abuse relief effort funds and certainly aren't deserving of relief.
This North/South regional bias seems to be a remnant of the civil war that still exists in the South (though Oklahoma wasn't a state until 1912, it has southern sympathies). It contributes to our national political dysfunction and the inability to effectively deal with national problems i.e. despoiling of the environment, a decaying national railroad system, "fracturing" in many states that threaten underwater water supplies, reducing carbon emissions nationwide, moving toward more wind and geothermal power and away from coal and gas fired power plants, just to name a few examples that come to mind.
And of course there exists the Republican "red" state and Democrat "blue" state split that defies efforts for bi-partisanship, even with aid to victims of natural disasters.
But natural disasters can strike anywhere and the victims are all deserving. The same goes for man-made disasters as happened with the B.P. oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico some 50 miles off the coast of Louisiana that devastated the fishing and shrimp industries, tourism and other businesses in South Louisiana and Mississippi.
The myopic Coburn's and Inhofe's are Neanderthals that have buffaloed those people in Oklahoma that put them in office. Hopefully the majority of voters in the state will see through the hypocrisy of these two narrow minded and spiteful men and toss them out of office when they're up for re-election.
