FEMA To States: Admit Climate Change Is Real To Get Preparedness Cash

It isn't George W. Bush's FEMA for sure. Now they're playing hardball with those climate-denying conservative states that suck up the disaster money like it's candy while continuing to deny the impact of global warming.

FEMA says no more.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is making it tougher for governors to deny man-made climate change. Starting next year, the agency will approve disaster preparedness funds only for states whose governors approve hazard mitigation plans that address climate change.

This may put several Republican governors who maintain the earth isn't warming due to human activities, or prefer to do nothing about it, into a political bind. Their position may block their states' access to hundreds of millions of dollars in FEMA funds. Over the past five years, the agency has awarded an average $1 billion a year in grants to states and territories for taking steps to mitigate the effects of disasters. READ MORE

Tehran Tom: U.S. Shouldn't Say Anything To Undermine Negotiations In Israel

OH NO HE DIDN'T. Oh yes, he did. Steve Benen:

Earlier in the day, State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki told reporters that when it comes to the U.S. policy towards Israel, “We’re currently evaluating our approach.” The comments were important, but not surprising – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent antics were bound to carry some consequences. But Cotton, the right-wing freshman in his second month in the Senate, called Psaki’s comments “worrisome“ – for a very specific reason.

“While Prime Minister Netanyahu won a decisive victory, he still has just started assembling a governing majority coalition. These kinds of quotes from Israel’s most important ally could very well startle some of the smaller parties and their leaders with whom Prime Minister Netanyahu is currently in negotiations.

“This raises the question, of course, if the administration intends to undermine Prime Minister Netanyahu’s efforts to assemble a coalition by suggesting a change to our longstanding policy of supporting Israel’s position with the United Nations.”

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Maher Spars With Conservatives Who Refuse To Admit Economy Improved Under Obama

I've been really tired of seeing this Kochhead Republican "strategist" Mercedes Schlapp all over the cable news shows in the last few months and turning up as a regular on Hardball more and more often, but I have to admit, I'd be a whole lot less tired of it if she received the same treatment she did on this Friday's Real Time every time she was allowed on the air.

Bill Maher wrapped up his panel segment with a discussion on Sen. Ted Cruz' appearance at an event in New Hampshire -- where he scared a three year old with is rhetoric that the "whole world is on fire" -- and President Obama's speech in Ohio this week, where he took some jabs at Republicans for their predictions of doom and gloom and the supposed disastrous impact his policies would have on the U.S. economy.

After getting a few jabs in on Cruz, Maher asked this of his guests.

MAHER: There are statistics on how much the world is on fire and Obama came back with them on Wednesday in Cleveland. He said what are you talking about, the economy is a disaster? Unemployment was 10 percent six months into my term, now it's 5.5. The Dow was under 8000 when I took office. Now it's almost 18,000. GDP was -.5.4 percent. Now it's 2.8 percent. The deficit was 9.8 percent of GDP. Now it's 2.2 percent.
At what point... these are facts... at what point do Republicans look foolish for being on the talking point page that no longer exists?  READ MORE

Send help: Republican staffers buried under avalanche of God-fearing chicken sandwiches

Do you remember back when Chick-fil-A's very godly and conservative CEO defended the chain's big donations to anti-marriage-equality groups by declaring that same-sex marriage was "inviting God's judgment" on America? In the halls of Congress, it has turned Chick-fil-A into the official Republican junk food.

Since [CEO Dan Cathy] made his controversial comments, House Republicans have spent nearly $13,000 in taxpayer money ordering Chick-fil-A, according to expenditure reports filed through July 2014 (the latest available). READ MORE

The Pentagon Admits It May Have Lost $500 Million in U.S. Weaponry To Al-Qaeda

Ever wonder where your where your tax money goes?:

The Pentagon is unable to account for more than $500 million in U.S. military aid given to Yemen, amid fears that the weaponry, aircraft and equipment is at risk of being seized by Iranian-backed rebels or al-Qaeda, according to U.S. officials. With Yemen in turmoil and its government splintering, the Defense Department has lost its ability to monitor the whereabouts of small arms, ammunition, night-vision goggles, patrol boats, vehicles and other supplies donated by the United States....[.]
In recent weeks, members of Congress have held closed-door meetings with U.S. military officials to press for an accounting of the arms and equipment. Pentagon officials have said that they have little information to go on and that there is little they can do at this point to prevent the weapons and gear from falling into the wrong hands. 

The tragicomedy of the apparent loss of these weapons has shined a light on our counterterrorism policy in now-collapsing Yemen, a subject few in our media care about, judging from the lack of coverage compared to, for example, burning questions about Hillary Clinton's email server.  Our supposedly representative Congress held "closed-door" meetings with DOD officials last week, asking the Pentagon to account for all of this hardware. The Pentagon brass essentially shrugged its shoulders:

“We have to assume it’s completely compromised and gone,” said a legislative aide on Capitol Hill who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Here's what's gone missing in Yemen, presumed lost and irretrievable: READ MORE

The phenomenon that can not be spoken in Florida continues as salt water intrusion moves inland

sewer water overflow

The densely populated megalopolis of South Florida is losing it's water wells as sea water intrudes into the Biscayne Aquifer. Salt water has already moved 6 miles inland in Broward County and is likely to continue to creep westward. Ninety percent of South Florida gets its drinking water from underground supplies, most from the Biscayne aquifer. This inland movement observed in Broward County is due to urban withdrawals from the Biscayne Aquifer, ocean water moving sideways into the aquifer and seepage of saltwater from surface sources.

Governor Scott, this is threatening the habitability of a region of close to 6 million of your fellow Floridians. Your inaction and hostility towards climate issues and sustainability now threatens funds and other aid from FEMA as they will not give money to any state that does not plan for climate change. Where is the disaster relief going to come from if not from Federal sources?

A report titled Climate Change AND Sea-Level Rise IN Florida notes the hellish calamity that will affect Florida's urban populations, economy, ecosystems and coasts.
What we know.

Florida‘s Biscayne Aquifer, the principal water supply to southeastern Florida and the Florida Keys, is recharged by rainfall and the freshwater Everglades. Surficial coastal aquifers are already experiencing saltwater intrusion. Rising sea level will increase the hydraulic backpressure on coastal aquifers, reduce groundwater flow toward the ocean, and cause the saltwater front to move inland, thus threatening to contaminate water-supply wells in coastal areas with seawater. In the low-lying southernmost Everglades, sea-level rise will cause brackish waters to encroach farther
northward.

The Pensacola Bay and St. Johns River watersheds and southern Florida from Palm Beach to Miami, the Florida Keys, Naples, and Fort Myers are especially vulnerable to saltwater intrusion into municipal freshwater supplies as sea levels rise (Dausman and Langevin, 2005; Freed et al., 2005; Murley et al., 2008).

The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan’s main purpose is to increase freshwater flow to the southern Everglades. This will help offset the effect of sea-level rise and help preserve Everglades ecologies and southern Florida’s water supply (South Florida Water Management District, 2009a). The South Florida Water Management District already spends millions of dollars per year to prevent Miami’s Biscayne Aquifer from becoming brackish (Miller et al., 1989). Rising sea level will cause groundwater near the coast to become more saline and groundwater levels to increase.

What is Probable. READ MORE

Just how strong are the GOP's gerrymanders? Daily Kos Elections' median district scores explain

In 2010, as Daily Kos readers are well aware, Republican swept to victory in Congress, taking back the House and making big gains in the Senate. At the same time, they also captured many governorships and legislatures, giving them control of the decennial redistricting process. With the map-maker's pencil firmly in hand, these new GOP majorities were able to draw district lines that favored them both at the congressional and legislative levels.

Scholars and pundits have debated exactly how much these maps are tilted in the Republicans' favor, but at Daily Kos Elections, we've developed one metric that's methodologically rigorous and highly illustrative of the GOP's advantage, relying on the "median seat" in each legislative chamber or state congressional delegation. The numbers, as we will explain, are starkly in favor of the Republicans.
Previously, we calculated the results of the 2012 presidential election according to every congressional and legislative district in the nation. That allows us to determine every state's median congressional district and every chamber's median legislative seat. But what do we mean by this median seat? In state legislatures, the median seat is the theoretical halfway point in each chamber whereby, if Democrats held every seat bluer (or Republicans held every seat redder), they'd control a majority of seats in that body.

For instance, in Ohio's state House, Mitt Romney won the median seat by a 51.3 to 47.6 margin. That means that if Democrats want to retake the House under the current map, they'd need to win all the districts that suported Romney by a 3.7 percent margin or less—at a minimum. Things rarely work out so precisely, though: Since Republicans are likely to hold a few seats that are bluer than this threshold, Democrats would have to capture a some redder seats as well. That's no easy task.
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