When two readers, within fifteen minutes, alert you to the same post, I always make sure to check it out.  And they were right.  This one is worthy of a link.

Michelle Malkin received a letter from a reader in Paducah, Kentucky who wrote to tell her just how bad things were in the Bluegrass State, “The situation is much more depressing for those who live in the rural area of our region as utility poles were snapped in half by the weight of the ice all over far Western Kentucky.”  According to the Paducah Sun:

The word from utility workers with direct Katrina experience is that ice storm devastation to western Kentucky’s power grid is worse than that inflicted by the infamous Gulf Coast hurricane.

“We’ve got linemen here from southern Mississippi who were there when Katrina hit, who worked the area after the hurricane,” said Kevin Inglish, a spokesman for West Kentucky Rural Electric Cooperative Corp.”

What stands out Michelle’s correspondent is that “no news anchors from any of the Big 3 or any cable news channel including Fox News” have flown in to cover the devastation as they ran to cover Katrina.

The president has yet to visit the region.

If you want to help out, FEMA lists volunteer agencies providing relief efforts.

Michelle details some of the relief efforts here.

Related:  Storm Hits Kentucky, FEMA Absent, Media Silent

UPDATE from Bruce (GayPatriot):   President Obama Reads Children’s Book While Poor White Folks in Kentucky Ignored After Natural Disaster.

Hey, this scene looks familiar…. My Pet Goat, Obama Style!  (h/t - Grande Conservative Blogress Diva Nominee, Ann Althouse)

Who would have thought that President Obama would make President Jimmy Carter look competent and in-touch?

One reason I thought John McCain would be a good president was that, unlike many in our party, he has always stood firm against wasteful government spending. True to his record, the 2008 GOP presidential nominee has come out swinging against his erstwhile opponent’s spendthrift “stimulus.”

In an e-mail to his supporters, McCain praised President Obama for having discussions with Republicans, yet faulted the Democrat for not giving them “the opportunity to be involved.”

The Arizona Republican didn’t mince words in criticizing the “stimulus:”

Unfortunately, the proposal on the table is big on the giveaways for the special interests and corporate high rollers, yet short on help for ordinary working Americans. I cannot and do not support the package on the table from the Democrats and the Obama Administration. Our country does not need just another spending bill, particularly not one that will load future generations with the burden of massive debt. . . . .

. . . we need to evaluate every bit of spending in this stimulus proposal with one important criteria – does it really stimulate the economy and help create jobs – if the answer is no, it does not belong in a so-called stimulus package. . . . Finally, we need an end game to this stimulus so that when our economy recovers, these spending programs do not remain permanent and saddle our children with a skyrocketing national debt.

Let’s hope other Republicans are equally blunt. It’ll help the American people see they’ve learned from their mistakes in the past years and are now committed to standing up to excess government spending.

Kudos to John McCain for leading the way.

Obama performance chief Killefer out, citing taxes.  As least Ms. Killefer “resolved” her tax issue before Obama tapped her.

If she withdraws her nomination due to a tax lien of less than $1,000, shouldn’t Daschle do the same for more than $100,000 in unpaid taxes?  And if he doesn’t, Republicans need follow thier new national chairman’s adivce and fight this nomination.

UPDATE:  A reader writes in:

3 nominees in 10 days who failed to pay back taxes. This is becoming a laugh riot….and I LOVE IT!!! So much for an open, honest, and ethical government with “shared burdens and responsibilites.” Of course, god forbid the media actually label them hypocrites. To them, it was a “simple mistake.” Any average Joe who did what these people did would be thrown in jail.

UPDATE: It’s official: Daschle withdraws as nominee for HHS secretary.

UPDATE:  Daschle withdraws as nominee for HHS secretary

Now that even the New York Times has called for Tom Daschle “to step aside” (via the Corner), it should be a no-brainer for Senate Republicans to oppose the former Senator’s confirmation as Secretary of Health and Human Services.

It’s not just his tax problems, it’s that he embodies everything Republicans are supposed to oppose. He is, as John Hinderaker puts it, a symbol of all that’s wrong in D.C. After John Thune ousted Daschle from the Senate in 2004, the Democrat didn’t return to his home state, but stayed in the nation’s capital where he made a mint “consulting” for a lobbying firm.

We’re supposed to be the party opposing the accretion of power in our nation’s capital.

Daschle is, in Jennifer Rubin’s words, “the consummate Washington insider who used his position to fatten his wife’s lobbyist portfolio.” And by tapping him for such an important post, Rubin believes, the president and his team have shown.

a tin-ear for corruption and venality. They, who marinated in the juices of Chicago, seem dense when it comes to this sort of thing. They didn’t know enough to stay away from Blago, nix Bill Richardson, stick to their own lobbyist rules, dump Geithner and now lose Daschle. And this comes from the campaign that ran against the Clintons and the Washington tradition of sleazy dealing.

The White House may assume its own lofty poll numbers and the President’s personal appeal have rendered it impervious to examination or criticism. But that, I think, is a mistake. The public’s disgust is not easily extinguished. They will be saddened and more than a bit angry that the President, who promised an end to all this, thinks there’s nothing wrong with business as usual.

It should be the policy of the GOP to run against business as usual in our nation’s capitol. Ronald Reagan dedicated our party to reducing the power of the nation’s capital.  If we don’t stand against a Democrat who embodies its excesses, against what will we stand?  Not just that, shouldn’t we hold him to the same standards he held Republicans when he was in the Senate?

Silence now further distances the GOP from the American people long disgusted by business as usual in Washington, D.C.

So, the GOP would do well to heed Rubin’s advice:  “For those Republicans who are remaining mute, they may want to reconsider. Silence is a dangerous game, giving the appearance that Republicans are behind the curve and out to lunch.”

UPDATE:  Good news.  New RNC Chair Michael Steele thinks Republicans should oppose Daschle’s nomination.

UP-UPDATE: More good news. Guess Republicans won’t need to oppose the South Dakota Democrat: Daschle withdraws.

While I’ve always been impressed with the former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s intellect, I see him more as a philosopher than a president.

In his post yesterday which I highly (***HIGHLY***) recommend, Rick Moran offers a similar view, calling the Georgian, “one of the most brilliant conceptualists in the conservative movement.” Despite his appreciation for Gingrich’s understanding of the sweep of history and the mechanics of politics, Moran identifies Newt’s principal flaw:

Gingrich never concerns himself with solutions, believing that identifying the problems clearly and concisely is enough — at least for him. But if he wants to be a force in presidential politics, he is going to have to get used to the idea that most people prefer a candidate who can both articulate what’s wrong and propose common sense solutions to fix it. To date, Newt is more enamored with that “next mountaintop” rather than slogging along, doing the grunt work of pushing solutions forward.

In that way, the former Republican Speaker is a lot like the incumbent Democratic president.

My only quibble with Moran’s conclusion is that sometimes Newt does come up with solutions, to wit, the Contract with America. That quibble aside, Moran provides an excellent analysis of a brilliant (but flawed) man. Don’t take my word for it. Just read the whole thing!

Not quite sure what to make of this, but it goes to show that money alone does not a good campaign make.  Just read that opponents of Proposition 8 outspent supporters of the ballot measure by over $3.5 million dollars:

More than $83 million was donated to support or oppose the ballot initiative that abolished same-sex marriage in California, according to campaign filings released Monday.

The new filings cover the weeks immediately before and after the Nov. 4 election. They show that elected officials, businesses, churches and individuals poured more than $28 million into the campaigns during the contest’s closing days.

The final tallies show that opponents of Proposition 8 raised $43.3 million in 2008 and had a little more than $730,000 left on hand at year’s end. The measure’s sponsors raised $39.9 million and had $983,000 left over.

Of course those totals don’t include the “value” of the efforts by volunteers on both sides of the initiative.