[UlceskLialels]

Fine time to play politics, Mr. Cantor.

Think Progress: http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/24/...saster-relief/

Firefighters and rescue workers who arrived in Joplin, MO, found that the deadly tornado that hit the state Sunday had left a “barren, smoky wasteland” in its path. Rescue workers worked through more storms in an effort to find potential survivors, even as the death toll rose to at least 119. President Obama pledged full support to the state Monday, telling survivors, “We’re here with you. We’re going to stay by you.”

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), however, said that before Congress approved federal funds for disaster relief, it had to offset the spending with cuts to other programs. The Washington Times reports:House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said Monday that if Congress passes an emergency spending bill to help Missouri’s tornado victims, the extra money will have to be cut from somewhere else.

“If there is support for a supplemental, it would be accompanied by support for having pay-fors to that supplemental,” Mr. Cantor, Virginia Republican, told reporters at the Capitol. The term “pay-fors” is used by lawmakers to signal cuts or tax increases used to pay for new spending.In 2005, Republicans criticized then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) for his willingness to fund relief in the wake of Hurricane Katrina by adding to the deficit. “It is right to borrow to pay for it,” he said at the time, explaining that cuts could “attack” the economy.

Meanwhile, as Climate Progress reports, the government’s tornado forecasting service faces cuts in the GOP Congress, including cuts to NOAA weather satellite that “could halve the accuracy of precipitation forecasts.” Accurate and early forecasting is tremendously important, as “tornado deaths in the United States have gone from 8 per 1 million people in 1925 to 0.11 per 1 million people today — a trend largely attributed to early-warning systems fed by advanced meteorology and the introduction of Doppler radar.”

If you would like to help with the relief effort, you can donate to the Red Cross here or AmeriCares here. CNN has more about ways you can help.

[Npbfamgt]

More tornadoes are touching down right now in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. Eric Cantor is a putz.

[Pyuvjzwf]

I wonder what his position would be if his district in Virginia were hit this hard.

[CialisBestPrice]

He'll back down when Rick Perry asks for aid. It's only fun for Cantor when denying funds to a state with a Democratic governor, like Jay Nixon in Missouri.

[poRmawayncmop]

Eric Cantor is a putz.

And that is putting it nicely, just his picture makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

[Fainnamoony]

Just who does the GOP think it's impressing with this continued "screw the American non-rich" rhetoric? Do they really think said rich people will be able to keep the party alive if nobody votes for it? Wisconsin, Ohio, Missouri... I usually consider those swing states. If the GOP continues to say the people don't matter in those states (as they have said with anti-union laws and now this), they'll have little chance of holding them in 2012... Are they planning on losing, hoping to point fingers at the wrong a fully-Democratic Washington "commits?" Joplin doesn't seem like a very rich area from what I can tell. You're going to tell them that it's better to offset said costs by cutting funding to the people there over raising taxes to those who can afford it.

I'm also wondering about the rhetoric, or lack thereof, for these tornados. Little talk about climate change, little speculation about why it's happening. Combine this with the floods, and the whole midwest is taking a huge hit... Missouri twice-over. Yet I haven't heard from Pat Robertson why all this destruction is happening all along the Bible Belt...