USA -Texas: Hurricane Harvey offers lessons Republicans will probably ignore

Hurricane Harvey has exposed the weakness of the three shibboleths that have been the guiding political philosophy for two generations of Republicans.

Those three shaky imperatives are that 1) lowering taxes is always a good idea, 2) government programs can always be cut and 3) economic growth must always be given priority over environmental concerns.

Until the hurricane hit, House Republicans were all set to chop $876 million from the disaster relief budget for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

That reduction would not produce a savings for taxpayers since the expectation was that the money would go toward buying President Trump’s border wall — the wall that Mexico, no matter what Trump claims, will never pay for. Now, reality has set in and the GOP congressmen realize there is a reason government needs to set money aside for disaster relief: Disasters always happen.

Note EU-Digest: Indeed the Republicans deserve a lot of the blame, but it also holds true for the presently very "wishy washy" Democrats. Bottom-line, unfortunately the US political system overall has become quite dysfunctional for some time now.. And, as the saying goes: "The proof is in the pudding", specially following the election of Donald Trump as the President of the US.

Read more: Hurricane Harvey offers lessons Republicans will probably ignore

Turkish earthquake death toll rises to 459

Hope of finding people alive under rubble fading; residents anger at gov't response: "The prime minister Erdogan runs for help when it's Palestine". 


Rescuers pulled a two-week-old baby girl alive from a collapsed apartment block on Tuesday as they battled to find survivors of an earthquake in eastern Turkey that killed more than 400 people and made tens of thousands homeless. The baby's mother and a grandmother were also brought out alive on stretchers to jubilant cries from onlookers who followed the dramatic rescue under cold, pouring rain.

"It's a miracle!" said Senol Yigit, the uncle of the baby, Azra, whose name means "purity" or "untouched" in Arabic. "I'm so happy. What can I say? We have been waiting for two days. We had lost hope when we first saw the building," he said sobbing.

For more: Turkish earthquake death toll rises to 4... JPost - International

Muslim Holiday: Greater Eid - November 6 - 9

From November 6 through 9 Muslims worldwide celebrate the "Festival of Sacrifice" or "Greater Eid" to commemorate the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael as an act of obedience to God, before God intervened to provide him with a ram to sacrifice instead. The meat of the Ram is divided into three parts. One third is given to the poor and needy; another third is given to relatives, friends and neighbors; and one third to the direct family.

Given the thought behind this particular Muslim holiday, Muslims and non-Muslims are encouraged to generously donate funds to their local relief organizations on behalf of the thousands of victims of the 7.2-magnitude earthquake in Ercis, Turkey, on October 25, 2011.

EU-Digest
No permission required to publish EU-Digest reports
as long as EU-Digest is indicated as the source

Illustration: EU-Digest: Hassan II Mosque, Casablanca