Tuesday’s self-serving, distraction tour of the Jersey Shore featuring President Barack Obama palling around with Governor Chris Christie to show-off the progress made since the devastating hurricane pummeled the shore six months ago, successfully allowed the media to change the subject from the barrage of scandals besetting the White House over the past month.
If the media had taken even a modestly critical look at the Sandy recovery effort, rather than buying the Obama messaging machine, they would have had a slightly different story to tell about FEMA’s work.
Wednesday morning on “Mornings on the Mall” on WMAL in Washington DC, co-host Brian Wilson and I interviewed Derek Tabacco from the disaster relief organization Guyon Rescue. According to Tabacco, the story on Staten Island is nowhere near what the media was told about the Jersey Shore. In fact, Guyon says New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has yet to release any of the city’s financial aid to the residents of New York’s “forgotten borough.”
Tabacco: I think there’s a lot of red tape floating around. FEMA’s not the fastest to respond, and the mayor’s office hasn’t released any of the city money to Staten Island yet.
O’Connor: Woah woah wait… Mayor Bloomberg hasn’t released any of the city’s disaster relief money to Staten Island yet?
Tabacco: It has not gotten to Staten Island, no, he has not released it. From what I understand, he just announced what portion he’s going to send to Staten Island, but I don’t know one Staten Islander that has received a dime from the city yet.
Tabacco went on to detail that President Obama made personal assurances when he visited the Island in November, and he has yet to make good on his promises.
The President was on Staten Island back in the beginning of November and he made a couple of promises to some homeowners and I know some of the homeowners personally, and they are still out of their homes and haven’t received any help at all. People are pretty upset with the president on Staten Island, that’s for sure.
Listen to the entire interview here:
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