John Stossel rips off FEMA ("That's why I built it there...")

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

John Stossel rips off FEMA



John Stossel appeared on The O'Reilly Factor and admitted that he built a dream house knowing it could get washed away, but was unafraid because the gov't would bail him out.

Video-WMP only (hat tip Joshua for the use of his video)

Bill: "..but you also knew that FEMA was going to give you money as soon as the big wave whacked it.

Stossel: "That's why I built it there..."

Here's a rich, fat cat using the system to benefit himself and gleefully (I like that word know) exploited FEMA so that he could prove how ineffective government is. I wonder if that was his foremost reason to begin with. O'Reilly loves this so he can back up his claim that government is useless. I wonder how many NOLA's had the luxury of building a beautiful beach front property- keeping in mind that the government would protect their property? How many NOLA's were just worried about their next meal? Obviously this was never the intent for the use of FEMA, but this ass wipe just loves the fact that taxpayers are footing the bill.

11:12:52 PM permalink11:12:52 PM

[philosophie_en_rose]

1. What an asshole! Talk about a "welfare queen"!

This is the same guy that begrudges anyone help for things they actually need....

I wonder if he isn't doing this just to make the real survivors look bad and justify the freepers "welfare queen" arguments. It's interesting to note that the people identified as buying designer purses and such are also assholes like John Stossel who intentionally defrauded the system at the expense of others.

[Crunchy Frog]

2. John Stossel, one of the big reasons I stopped watching TV.

A few years back, I had no idea who this guy was, but I was flipping around with the remote and ran into a program where he was spewing a bunch of crap about environmental issues. I was absolutely disgusted and realized that I was taking a risk every time I turned on the TV of running into shit that would literally make me ill. That was when I began to decide that watching TV was more trouble than it was worth.

[Julius Civitatus]

6. He is just like Ron Burgundy in "Anchorman"

I believe lots of the Ron Burgundy character played by Will Ferrell were based on John Stossel. No surprise there!

:eyes:

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

8. Ron Burgundy - Integrity = John Stossel

[Kagemusha]

3. He's making a serious point in the manner of a big jerk.

People would be disinclined to build dream homes in these places if the government didn't explicitly promise to bail them out like this in the event of a flood. This also gets into the insurance game: protecting the insurers to keep premiums low to encourage building, and rolling the dice that a real disaster would never come or, if it did, most of the losses would simply be written off and the people who suffer, supported by the government or left on their own.

So this is an example of the government distorting the market for political reasons, because this pretense that it's a vital national interest for the central government to subsidize housing on the Gulf coast is basically one big money train.

[tsuki]

4. WELFARE QUEEN!

[Julius Civitatus]

5. Stossel is a BIG HYPOCRITE

Don't even let me started with the fact that Stossel is one of the worst, most biased so-called "news anchors" on television.

This egocentric a**hole is one of the BIGGEST defenders of Libertarian principles on TV. He is a rabid believer in social Darwinism and subscribes to Grover Norquist's goal to eliminate the federal government and let people fend for themselves... like in the middle ages.

So this idiot, who has made a career of insulting and ridiculing the left, mocking advocates of government programs, insulting anyone who doesn't support tax cuts, and distorting the effectiveness of a strong civilized federation with his trademark whine "Gimme a break!"... yes, this idiot is now complaining because the federal government was supposed to save his mansion.

Scumbag!!!

Liar!!!

Hypocrite!!!

Aaaaaaaaagrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!

:argh:

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

7. You have to watch the clip...

...I stopped at the part where he said he rented the house out to people like John Tesh who "wanted to pick up girls in the Hamptons."

:puke: