Judge: FEMA Must Continue to Ease Suffering

A judge ruled today that FEMA has been "callous" and "insensitive" and must continue to pay the hotel bills of Hurricane Katrina victims through February.

Since when are legal rulings to be made on the basis of emotions? The judge, a Clinton appointee, in essence said that since the federal law authorizing FEMA created the agency to ease suffering after disasters, FEMA must keep easing suffering as long as the judge sees fit. FEMA's arbitrary deadline was "unduly callous" and victims might be "without shelter for Christmas"...so the judge substituted FEMA's arbitrary deadline with his own.

The judge also said the victims were "discriminated" against due to their "economic status." Personally, I feel discriminated against by the judge due to my economic status...he feels perfectly comfortable taking the hard-earned fruits of my labor to give to others. A new form of taxation without representation? Maybe our representatives need to un-fund FEMA so that a judge can't spend the agency's money for them.

Whatever happened to the idea that family, community, charity, and state should take care of their own, rather than the federal government? And while we're at it, what about the issue of personal responsibility? I live in California, and I pay a substantial amount for annual earthquake insurance. I wonder how many hurricane victims didn't buy flood insurance but had DVD players or big screen TV's? Hmmm.

Incidentally, I'd be really curious to know if FEMA paid nearly half a year's hotel bills for victims of the last couple major earthquakes in California.

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Meanwhile, Michelle Malkin reports that media and political ranting to the contrary, less than half of those who died in Hurricane Katrina were black.