http://www.chron.com/…

Some Galveston officials aren’t too pleased with their congressional representative, Ron Paul, R-Lake Jackson, for voting against the $22.8 billion disaster recovery aid package on Wednesday.

“That’s sad. That’s bad,” City Manager Steve LeBlanc said.

“I find it very distressing,” said Councilwoman Karen Mahoney, who represents the West End of the island, where damage was extreme. “He’s voting against aid for the region that he represents? I don’t find that very representative.”

Texas won’t get all that money, since some is dedicated to Iowa flood victims, Gustav victims and other disaster areas, but it could get more than half.

The legislation passed the House on Wednesday, 370-58. It also included other federal spending and the lifting of the ban on offshore drilling in the Atlantic and Pacific.

Eight of the Houston area’s nine lawmakers voted for the bill, with the exception of Paul. His spokeswoman, Rachel Mills, said Thursday that the congressman did not vote for the bill because it contained other “unconstitutional” provisions, which she did not specify.

Paul is famous for his consistent positions on limited government and low taxes. His views have drawn a vocal grass-roots following across the country.

Reactions among Galvestonians were mixed.

“That’s not too good,” said Mareia Schreiber while shaking out water-soaked artwork. “It feels kind of bad for the citizens of Galveston.”

But other residents said Paul’s vote didn’t bother them. “We’ve worked hard all our lives,” said Gene Lossow. “We take care of ourselves. I don’t need FEMA or anything else. We got insurance.”

Lossow, 65, works as a clerk at the Port of Galveston. The floodwaters soaked through his one-story ranch house, rising to 4 feet. Lossow and his wife had just spent $90,000 renovating the home a few months ago.

Lossow, who said he doesn’t vote, shrugged at news of the aid package. “There are too many people who expect the government to take care of them. But I’m not one of them.”

Tina Rios, who was helping her elderly parents clean out their flooded home on Ibis Street, said it was too early for her to think about “political stuff.”

“The only thing going on in our house is trying to save whatever we can,” she said. “We had flood insurance, but not contents insurance.”

Mills said Paul voted for a separate bill that passed Wednesday, the Disaster Tax Relief Act of 2008. The measure offers individuals and businesses in disasters to claim tax deductions for losses and to write-off expenses related to cleanup.

Who knows what the sampling was like but it’s encouraging to see some people out there who are truly self sufficient. He’s been doing this for years and they keep electing him so these kinds of votes must not really concern the people much.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/…

Rep. Ron Paul of Texas is proud of what he sees as his truly conservative credentials. He’s for smaller government, much smaller. He’s for foreign trade but not foreign military involvement. He wants to spend that money wasted on empire-building right back here in these United States of America. He’d also get rid of the Education Department and the Federal Reserve.

His followers, who reverently call him Dr. Paul, like the way he would strictly adhere to the Constitution as he sees it and return more freedoms to the little guy in the face of big government.

Paul fans — regularly called Paulites, Paultards or Paulunteers — also see a gentle humility in the weathered but wise hands of the 72-year-old ob-gyn, who reputedly has delivered some 4,000 infants into life in this wondrous world.

But there seems to be another side to Paul. A mean, vicious, cruel and uncaring side. A side that sees millions of humans — albeit Burmese who are not registered to vote in Texas — afflicted with an historic cyclone, countless thousands of lives lost, devastation everywhere.

And the doting grandfather could care less.

This week when a Congressional resolution came up for a vote merely offering “condolences and sympathy” to the people of Burma affected by the recent deadly cyclone, Ron Paul, the millionaire, was the only member of the entire House of Representatives to vote “No.”

The Myanmar resolution, like all those goofy pieces of symbolic legislation, would have done absolutely nothing for the stricken millions. Not even provided one paper towel. It’s a cheap publicity trick that elected legislators waste countless hours on each session.

Such worthless resolutions don”t even get much publicity anymore. And, to put it in blunt political terms, exactly how strong is the Burmese vote around here anyway?

So Paul’s symbolic stand against symbolic silliness looks good.

But then along come the sharp-eyed folks over at Radaronline.com, specifically Nick Curran, who finds out that Paul’s stand against symbolic silliness when it comes to Asians whose huts and hovels were erased by cyclone, is not quite so principled and a whole lot more enthused about dumb statements of sentiment when the silliness is closer to home.

Come to find out Paul has voted in favor of similar empty resolutions to congratulate the University of Kansas football team for a swell season and winning the 2008 FedEx Orange Bowl, to the Louisiana State football team for, golly, winning the 2007 Bowl Championship Series and to celebrate the New York Giants for their come-from-behind victory in Super Bowl XLII.

Seriously, what Texas congressman near Houston wouldn’t want to get on the official Congressional record wishing all the best to every one of the good folks up in New York City?

Wait til the Houston Texans find out about that one. Or, worse for Paul, some Dallas fans.

–Andrew Malcolm

As I posted to Andrew’s blog… Less then 30 seconds on Google News search would have rewarded you with: ‘Paul spokeswoman Rachel Mills said the congressman objected to a sentence in the resolution calling on Burma’s ruling generals to postpone a scheduled referendum in order to concentrate their resources on disaster assistance. “It interferes with the internal affairs of another country,” Mills said. “It’s just none of our business.”‘The pointlessness of the resolution itself was not the reason for the vote. It was the fact it tried to instruct the Burmese government on what it should do. As minor as it may appear it’s only a matter of degrees from other interventionist language we place in other resolutions which represent the actual interventionist actions we take. If you want to stop being to bully you ought to stop talking like one too.

As for the other votes on pointless resolutions… there is nothing you can do. Anyone in Congress can bring up any damn resolution they want or talk about whatever they want. If Paul is already in attendance he can vote NA, YAY or not vote. Nothing changes any which way and there is nothing unconstitutional about pointless resolutions. Voting no or not voting sends no message in those cases. In this case however it can. Only reason to vote against the pointless resolutions would be to save the ink given NA is shorter then the other options or to hold an absolute stance against wasting time. The congressmen get paid yearly anyway so I’d much rather them take up their time with pointless congrats resolutions than messing with things that actually effect the real world.