"Residents in Okla. return to neighborhoods in pieces" by Jack Healy and Emma G. Fitzsimmons | New York Times, May 23, 2013
MOORE, Okla. — Two days after a huge tornado barreled through this working-class town, authorities reopened the worst-hit neighborhoods for the first time Wednesday, giving residents a few hours to search for wedding rings, retrieve abandoned pets, and pry apart a briar patch of rubble to see what had survived, and what had not.
At 3 p.m. the police and military members who had been barricading the streets stepped aside to allow scores of people back into their neighborhoods. Some went in on foot, pulling their children in red wagons. Some drove pickups loaded with equipment. People carried tarps and tubs, crowbars and chain saws, and anything else that could help them sift through the heaps of what had once been their homes.
Word on the real media (blogs) is that under cover of disaster government seized guns.
Most had been in their houses during the twister or its immediate aftermath and knew what to expect. Others had been on vacation or out of town when the tornado struck Monday afternoon and had been allowed back for only enough time to grab a bottle of pills or snap a cellphone photo.
On Wednesday, they got the full picture.....
Wednesday’s homecoming marked a first step in the long and expensive process of rebuilding....
President Obama plans to tour the area Sunday....
Photo op, just like Sandy, and it will get him out of Washington and away from the scandals.
People who work in Moore said they were worried about how they would draw a paycheck in the months ahead....
On Wednesday, the town began to clean up. Hundreds of residents and volunteers from across the state gathered to rake the debris from cemeteries and public parks. They swept out the driveways of neighbors and strangers, handed out free water and hot meals, and began pondering whether to rebuild or move on.
Amid the cleanup, families across the area were planning funerals and grieving for the 24 people killed in the storm....
To residents, the number of children on the list was heartbreaking. There was Christopher Legg, 9, who loved football so much that he played on two teams — the Rough Riders and the Red Eagles. He had suffered from melanoma and Osgood-Schlatter disease, which caused a painful limp. But his family said Christopher, a third-grader, faced the diseases with strength and optimism....
Christopher was one of the seven children killed inside Plaza Towers Elementary. There was also Janae Hornsby, 9, who was described by her family’s pastor as a ‘‘beautiful little girl’’ who made people feel happy just to know her. There was Emily Conatzer, 9, whose mother, Kristi, posted a Facebook message saying she had hoped she would wake up Wednesday to see Emily jumping around and giggling. And there was Kyle Davis, 8, who played soccer and went to monster-truck shows.
The other children killed in the storm were identified as Case Futrell, 4 months old; Sydnee Vargyas, 7 months old; Karrina Vargyas, 4; Antonia Candelaria, 9; Sydney Angle, 9; and Nicolas McCabe, 9.
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Related: A chaser chases his last storm
Also see: Astonished at Oklahoma Tornado
NEXT DAY UPDATES:
Students reunite at destroyed Okla. school
Okla. firm seeks exemption from birth control mandate
Maybe Obama can help clear that up.
I'm also astonished at the lack of coverage of the scandals in my Globe:
"IRS official denies misleading Congress" by Jeremy W. Peters | New York Times, May 23, 2013
WASHINGTON — On May 10, when Lois Lerner first apologized for the targeting, she told reporters that she had learned of the improprieties from news media reports in early 2012. But a Treasury inspector general’s audit indicated that she knew far earlier than that and tried to broaden the scope of the targeting efforts to include liberal as well as conservative groups.
Then she lied in responding to the staged and planted question she knew was coming.
Members of both parties used the hearing to offer unsparing criticism of the IRS and the other agency officials who sat before them, saying that revelations that the agency had singled out certain politically minded groups were inexcusable. Also appearing before the committee were Neal S. Wolin, the deputy secretary of the Treasury Department; J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration; and Douglas Shulman, a former commissioner of the IRS.
One Democrat, Representative Stephen F. Lynch of Massachusetts, even raised the threat of appointing a special prosecutor if Congress continues to feel that the IRS is not being straightforward.
“We know where that will lead. It will lead to a special prosecutor,” he said. “There will be hell to pay if that’s the route we choose to go down.”
You would have made a good senator, Steve.
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Related: No Action on Obama Impeachment
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
"IRS official placed on leave after declining to testify before House panel" by Jonathan Weisman | New York Times, May 24, 2013
WASHINGTON — Lois Lerner, the head of the Internal Revenue Service’s division on exempt organizations, was put on administrative leave Thursday, a day after she invoked the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution and declined to testify before a House committee....
The decision came to light minutes after Senators Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, and John McCain, Republican of Arizona, released a letter to the new acting IRS commissioner, Danny Werfel, demanding her immediate suspension for what they said was her failure to disclose information to their Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
“Given the serious failure by Ms. Lerner to disclose to this subcommittee key information on topics that the subcommittee was investigating, we have lost confidence in her ability to fulfill her duties,” Levin and McCain wrote.
Lerner has been under pressure since May 10, when she delivered an awkward apology to Tea Party and other conservative groups whose applications for 501(c)(4) tax exemptions had been singled out for special scrutiny.
Even with all the practice that must have been behind the planted, knew it was coming question?
At that time she said she had learned of the targeting in 2012, when Tea Party groups publicly accused the IRS of mistreatment. But a Treasury inspector general’s audit released days later appeared to indicate that she knew of the effort well before then and had tried to reshape it. Lawmakers from both parties accused her of lying to them.
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Lois the Liar.
The other two, three scandals? Out of sight and not a word.
Also see: Murray Makes His Move
