GOD BLESS KENTUCKY

To watch the mainstream media, “from our Illinois perspective” one might conclude that Kentucky is merely struggling a bit amidst a winter wonderland of sunshine and lollipops. Having visited the bluegrass state over the weekend I can attest to the complete disaster visited upon them a full week ago.



Kentucky was victimized last Monday by an ice storm, “3 inches” that effectively shut the state down. To date; there remains gas lines, food shortages, water outages and almost 300,000 households without electricity. Kentucky’s Governor, Steve Beshear, Democrat, has been quick to complain about everything except the federal response.



Yet, the residents we spoke to railed against FEMA and the federal response in general. Megan Gore, of the Paducah area noted that as soon as FEMA showed up, the gas and kerosene dried up. Electric generators ceased to exist, electronic purchases halted and even the local WAL-MART had to have security usher twenty-five shoppers in at a time, to a store without power.



Here in Springfield we confirmed that only one store had generators in stock and their supply was dwindling to three units. We were told that every generator was headed to Kentucky. And; they weren’t being purchased by FEMA.



It’s little wonder that the freshly minted Obama administration hasn’t broken a sweat for a state he lost by twenty points and it’s even less of a surprise that the Democrat Governor hasn’t taken the leader of his party to task for his inaction. After all; there’s infrastructure money for the states to be had and it’s a safe bet Governor Beshear doesn’t want to lose his place in line.



Still, as of today, at least twenty deaths are attributed to the after effects of the storm, Many due to ill vented kerosene heaters and hypothermia. But, as residents in Graves and McCracken counties told us; wait until they go door to door.

Much of Kentucky is rural and elderly. Many of these people have been living without electricity, water, food or heat for more than a week. They expect the death toll to go much higher.



All the while Governor Beshear puts lipstick on this pig; as people die. What we want to know is this; Where are the Charlie Gibson’s, the Katie Couric’s, the Shepard Smith’s crying on the overpass asking where are the FEDS? Where is Obama’s FEMA and where’s Obama?



The only positive in this story are the people of Kentucky themselves. Antidotal as our observations were, we suspect what we noticed is in fact statewide. Nobody was waiting for FEMA and it’s a good thing. We saw people with chainsaws, neighbors helping each other and a grit unseen in New Orleans. We saw Americans; we saw what founded this country and made it into what it is today. We saw spirit and guts. We saw.



Conservative Springfield Staff 02FEB09