Hard Times, Tough Times

The aftermath off Hurricane Sandy has left so many people homeless and without food, warmth and necessary supplies.  There are reports of people scrounging in dumpsters to find whatever food they can. Residents of Staten Island are out of food.  Power has not been restored completely in affected areas and people are suffering.

If you can, donate to the charity of your choice to help alleviate the problems of the victims of Hurricane Sandy 

The hurricane and the derecho storm this past summer should be a wake up call for us to be prepared for a natural or other disaster.  Here is a helpful website that will help you focus on what you will need. 

The Basic Rules of Survival During Hard Times

You become like the ones ya hang with!

Hillary Clinton is coming under fire for seeking advice from good old Sandy "is that a classified document in my pants" Berger. Here's a quote from Newsweek columnist Michael Hirsch:

The more experienced Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, has relied largely on her husband and a triumvirate of senior officials from his presidency—former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, former U.N. ambassador Richard Holbrooke and former national-security adviser Sandy Berger (who tries to keep a low profile after pleading guilty in 2005 to misdemeanor charges of taking classified material without authorization).

My question is this - did Clinton go bad like Berger or did Berger go bad like Clinton.

A big whiff of a double standard

Despite Ann Coulter's recent verbal faux pas, she makes a point about something that has had me wondering for a while. Why do prominent Democrats get off the hook when they commit crimes, and Scooter Libby has to do hard time for not remembering who gave him information about a covert agent who was not covert? Is it that we expect Democrats to ride on a list of shady and unethical behavior, and that we expect Republicans to have clean reputations?

The list of Democrats is long and notorious: Teddy Kennedy abandoning his "girl of the night" and letting her drown, Patrick Kennedy's wild ride under the influence of booze and meds, William Jefferson's $90,000 of bribe money in the freezer, Harry Reid's questionable land deals in which the 'take' was larger than Abramoff's, or Sandy Burger's deliberate and poorly hidden plot of stealing classified materials and stuffing them in his underwear and socks so he could destroy them.

Why the double standard? Even in academia, those who espouse liberal causes get away with saying the most outrageous things, whereas conservatives are drummed down and even out.

Are the American people so cowed and fearful that we might offend others if we stand against obvious ethical lapses? Or have we lost our will to care and to correct this imbalance?

I would love to hear what you think.

UPDATE:
Good Follow Up Reading:

A Verdict on the Wilson Affair