“And god forbid that Chuck Todd do some actual reporting on the number of states and municipalities in these flyover country areas that can’t afford to plow all this snow off the streets.”

Reporting? It is so much easier for Chuck to pull an opinion out of his arse. That is his specialty.

We’re still shoveling out from the 20.5″ of not news from last week. Kudos to the folks at the power company who worked night and day to restore power to those who lost it. The lights stayed on here, grateful for that.

unsung heroes to be sure

It makes you hope that they’re the ones who are stuck the longest, just so they begin to value things like snowplows and road maintenance. (I suspect the folks who drive the plows and do the road work would cheerfully help make it so.)

That republicans are fools is definitely not news.

In Tippecanoe Cty, IN the GOPPERS are fully in charge. Their mandate is “No tax increases” so anything, no matter how good for everyone or sorely needed gets deep-sixed. My neighbors will say that is unfair of me to say that because property taxes are TOOO HIGH!!!, but time and time again the GOPPER answer to needs is “NO!!!”

And, state wide the GOPPERs have the same attitude. Last session our governor refused to use the “Rainy Day” fund Indiana has to maintain services. The “Rainy Day” fund is two years of taxes saved away at no interest, BY LAW! in Indiana banks, supposively there to be used when things are REALLY tough. Well, soon the governor will start to furlough State Police Officers, but he won’t “raid” the “Rainy Day” Fund.Exactly what “really tough” means is something worse than anything seen since the 1930s.

IDIOTS!

Wasn’t there part of a Vaudeville routine, the set-up guy saying he woke up to find his house covered with ‘snew’? And the patsy of course asks, “What’s ‘snew’?” You can guess the punchline.

chuck todd is not news

But he is a Serious Person.

Chuck Todd is currently in snowy Hawaii pushing bobble heads. Hope some creative Hawaiian makes a bobble head of Chucky.

In NYC, a mayor loses the election if the plows don’t show up in a timely matter. This is a subject for political advertising now–when people are in distress. Memories are short, if Dems wait until 9/2010 to bring this up, it is “not news.”

Word: Prop 13. (Guess that’s two words.)

Why should people want to pay more taxes when so much just winds up in the hands of campaign contributors? Think Fannie Freddie, TARP, endless mid east wars, agribiz subsidies, bloated Pentagon budgets and all the other favorite projects of our phony “2 party” system.

Substitute for “snow plowing” educating our children in school or public college, open libraries, working child & protective services, courts, fire & rescue services, and you have a perfect description of Republican America, one that Mr. Obama finds oddly comforting to his conflict-averse soul.

What is working are police and domestic surveillance. They seem to get whatever funds they need. Of course, they’re important. So are all those other needs. The funny thing is, the more you attend to them, the less you need the police and jails. Guess that’s not in the ConservaDem or Republican budgets.

I thought the only snow was in Oklahoma. Sure was lookin’ that way on CNN today.

North Dakota has no worries. Lotsa snow but no worries. Our Republican governor is being pushed to run against Byron Dorgan, complete with Rasmussen poll reporting that essentially was the front page earlier this week. So of course Gov. Whooooo?Ven? has already declared a snow emergency.

All is well.

I used to live in Minnesota during the mid-eighties and I can tell you that one of things that impressed me most about that state was how efficiently it managed to operate during the winter months. Snow plows were out and roadways were salted as soon as possible after a winter storm. It is sad to hear that Minnesota is caught up in the same clusterfuck as California.

Rather ironic… No…? ;-)

Mele Kalikimaka, Ya’ll…! *g*

” because the condo association asked the private contractor for our sidewalks and parking lots to please do what the city won’t ”

hey you should just be grateful that your tax dollars are going to bailout massive global money laundering rackets in NY and London, instead of being wasted locally on some welfare “snow removal” program. safety is the responsibility of the individual and we should just thank The Lord, that we are going to finally live in a “free market” paradise.

I talked to my Aunt in MN this morning and she said she couldn’t go anywhere even if she wanted. she’s 95. she was worried about my cousin driving up form Minneapolis to see her.

yep libraries are closing and schools are having budgets slashed, but the police “need” a giant Huey chopper or an Armored personel carrier (with .50 caliber machine gun) or some lex luther-esque sound cannons, the check is blank.

but he won’t “raid” the “Rainy Day” Fund.Exactly what “really tough” means is something worse than anything seen since the 1930s.

Maybe its the Banks rainy day fund? Not plowing the snow during the Christmas shopping season will impact retailers when they are the most vulnerable.

That’s a gift from the Homeland Security idiots.

The Chicago Machine lost after that big snowstorm in the 70′s and gave us our first Woman Mayor followed by our First African American mayor the GOP I’m sure does not want to face this kind of change.

actually, as i was writing that it occured to me that they probably will “need” those things, when the time comes. Orwells nightmare society is on the way, and it wont be the massive state he feared in the the 20th century. Or at leat not as he envisioned it. it will all be “privatized”.im so depressed with what we’ve become in the last 35 years i could just puke.

Ever since Chuck Todd’s tweet that a massive, person-killing snowfall two weeks ago was “not news”, the favorite term for snow here at FDL is Not News,

I always catch hell for this, but I have to agree with Chuck.

Why in the world do “natural disasters” or “plane crashes” become Big News for days on end? Aside from the fierce anxiety all the people directly involved in it went through, it is not really Big News unless there is something connected to it that makes it important for others to wait and see how the aftermath unfolds. In other words, suppose a plane crashing into, say, the Hudson river had been as a result of a terrorist act. Or suppose it was linked to a mechanical failure the airline had been warned might happen if they did not take action A or B? And they didn’t.

Now that would be news.

Instead, the whole thing morphs into these ridiculously melodramatic news stories or Dateline and 20/20 specials in which we see the same people interviewed over and over and over and over again. Then you start wondering: Who is going to get the best deal on Wall Street when this morphs again into a commodity?

If it wasn’t so scary for the people actually involved, it would be nothing short of ridiculous, thetime expended on it. Just another vox populi segment on the ever continuing Howard Beale’s news hour today’s modern media has turned into.

One of these days I will be watching Ann Curry gush with Dramatic Licence about the next disaster when suddenly Chris Hanson interupts her and says, “NBC has now confirmed that nearly 20,000 more children have died from starvation around the world in just the last 24 hours”.

And then Ann Curry will turn to him and ask, “Chris as far as we know, were any of these children related to the passengers on the plane?”

So who thinks that people will demand more from the Government next election.? Taxing the rich could be a wining issue for us especially since we bailed them out first!

Anyone with half a brain would do this: You want to not pay taxes? OK! Here’s what you don’t get anymore: Fire Response, Police Response, Trash Pickup, Road Maintenance, Mail Delivery, etc. ad nauseum. That would shut them up real quick. But since Democrats can’t seem to pull together 1 brain out of them all: not gonna happen.

Read a story a couple of years ago about a relatively small city in Iowa or Nebraska – some place unlikely to have a terrorist attack – and it had received all this high-tech stuff from Homeland Security. They interviewed a female police officer and she said she had no idea what they would do with all the “stuff” but they were happy to have it. Talk about taking a bazooka to a gnat – with your tax dollars.

one whole brain? i dont think the senate (dem and rep) have two NEURONS to share between them

wowee i dont know WHY they sent the podunk PD F111′s and some neutron bombs, but were pleased as punch to get them!! typical police brain response.

You can thank Chertoff who was a total numbskull and was incapable of a coherent thought.

Why in the world do “natural disasters” or “plane crashes” become Big News for days on end?

We need them to distract us from the depressing news coming out of Washington.

Well they had the money so they had to spend it. And it was for the police, not schools or anything like that…

I’m from California, I thought that the rest of you had Reindeer Sleds.

As Detroiters how they like not having their snow removed. As a consequence of longstanding disputes, city government at one time owned about three snow trucks. Small shopping malls own or contract for more trucks. Other Midwestern snow-belt cities had hundreds, but not the home of Big Auto.

I can’t imagine that race had anything to do with it, or poverty, but Detroit’s white suburbs, home to its manufacturers and executives, had well-swept wintry streets. The boys in Birmingham and Bloomfield had no trouble getting to work or the country club. Now we’re seeing it across the country.

Imagine it if these GOP imbeciles incorporated their idea of no topline revenue increases in a private business plan to a venture capitalist. They would be laughed out of the room as incompetent or pointed toward a bankruptcy attorney.

Instead, these GOP morons use their “no tax increase” voodoo in our government as a selfish and manipulative weapon to dupe the public to believe there is something for nothing. You wonder when these saps will ever catch on to their fraud.

Agree with you—I lived there in 1983 and the only day I missed from work was when it was 31 below zero, with the windchill nearly 100 below. They told peoplke to stay home because it was dangerous to be out. There was 40 inches of snow on the ground at the time which did not present any inconvenience to getting where you needed to go as the roads were passable.

In Hawaii the Republican governor is “balancing” the budget by cutting 10% of the school days.

“Furlough Fridays” from now as far as the eye can see.

This in a state that ranks [literally] down there with MS, AL and LA for the bottom of the barrel in education.

Yep, American state and federal government treats its people like big bidness deals with labor – its most expendable asset. Fewer and fewer of them are going to go gently into that good night. Mr. Obama’s conservative bent is cementing the loss of hope engendered by George Bush. He may tell himself he’s preserving the status quo, but for a hundred million Americans, he’s ending it.

Speaking of taxes, I’ve read if there isn’t a public option there will have to be:

extremely restrictive regulations and a strong regulatory apparatus, not only on the insurance but also on the medical and pharmaceutical industries

http://rawstory.com/2009/12/final-battle-public-option/
So another huge and expensive department paid for by our taxes. Is the cost of this included in the figures of the HCR bill that the WH puts out?
So we will be taxed and taxed again. What crap. Do what other countries do put a VAT (value added tax)on imports. Problem solved.

Bitch about the snow, but God gave that to You.

So you think You got it bad hey.

I rememeber a snow where I had a snow blower on my tractor, and blew out my 200ft drive, and went on to blow my way another two hundred feet out to the main road.

All of that only to find that twenty three foot drifts blocked the main road, and two weeks later with the help of army tanks with plows the roads were cleared so we got out.

Some people just don’t know what real snow is.

Plowing snow – or the lack thereof – is just further hard evidence that republicans believe in “governing on the cheap”.
Forget value for tax dollars spent, they prefer “Family Values” since that doesn’t cost anything and voters cannot hold them accountable for it.
As for public safety, here in Arizona the republican majority just passed a law making it legal to carry concealed weapons in a bar – Now what could go wrong with that…