Did You Know It’s National Preparedness Month? Here Are Tips From the Experts on How To Be Ready

What does emergency preparedness mean to you? For some, it means having a flashlight (bonus if it has working batteries). Others are a bit more advanced with a “72-hour kit“ or ”bug out bag” — basically the essentials to maintain life for a short period of time. Then there are those who build bunkers and go on extreme coupon benders to stock up on supplies.
Given that it’s National Preparedness Month, an annual awareness month hosted in September by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, TheBlaze decided to speak with some of those in the preparedness movement that we’re familiar with (via The Marketplace by TheBlaze) and get some practical tips about getting ready for emergencies.
“This year’s wildfires, the derecho, and Hurricane Isaac are all important reminders that disasters can happen anytime and anywhere,” FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate said in a statement. “By taking steps now to prepare for emergencies, we ensure that our families and communities are prepared to respond and recover from all types of disasters and hazards. Together, our efforts will build a stronger and more resilient nation.”
Mike Porenta, chief of operations for the American Preppers Network, said that being ready for disaster — whether it be a natural event, epidemic sickness or terrorist attack — is more than just having stocks of water. He also said it shouldn‘t take a huge investment to adequately prepare one’s family for an emergency.
In its own statement regarding National Preparedness Month, APN states that it takes FEMA’s suggestions as a baseline but that it wants people to focus more on preparedness with an edge for self-reliance:

FEMA’s information is solid, it’s great – it’s also simple and short-sighted. In seeking a simple and structured solution, they have completely overlooked teaching self-reliance. In fact, their model expects you to NOT be self-reliant. They want you to prepare to live until they get to you. We want you to prepare so that when/if they get to you, you say no-thanks and send them away. Preppers do not belong in shelters. We belong in our homes if we’re bugging in or in out BOL if we’re bugging out. We do not rely on nor do we need FEMA or anyone else to come rescue us and take care of us.

Get to know your neighbors now

Porenta‘s number one suggestion is to get to know your neighbors before you’re in an emergency situation. There is a benefit in banding together as a group in an emergency, but he said doing so after a disaster strikes is not the best time.
Stating what he hopes is common sense, Porenta notes you shouldn’t approach neighbors with only preparedness plans in mind — “you don’t want to scare them off” — but doing so tactfully could give neighbors a strong network.
Porenta is clear to point out that not everyone is going to jump on this preparedness bandwagon.
“You can’t train the mentality of preparedness,” Porenta said. But finding others around you who would want to work together in an emergency could be enough to help those nearby as a whole if the time ever came.
Plan on a group scale
After finding neighbors interested in preparing, Porenta said the next step is to establish a plan.
“Just like when you have an escape route plan … discuss who will be the most in need in the event of a disaster,” he said. “Identify the weakest people in the neighborhood who would need help, the people who are really struggling.”
These people could vary depending on the situation. Elderly may be limited in a physical disaster, but during economic collapse, consider those who might be on food stamps and how to help them should that service ever be cut off.
“Just get three to four families like you feel like you can connect with and figure out a plan for your area. Figure out the most likely disaster your area could experience – plants closing, natural disaster — and plan accordingly.
Stock up on what matters
Although it may seem like a good idea to have a large stockpile of canned goods in your basement, Porenta said that might not be as useful as you would think.
“People think about food the most, but they haven’t taken into consideration shelter … or access to water,” he said.
In a situation where “normal American life can’t continue, figure out your most essential human needs” and gather those items (or learn how to safely obtain them if you can’t gather them per se):

1. Oxygen
2. Water and water test kits
3. Shelter
4. Food

What would Porenta say is the most valuable tool to have on hand? A chainsaw. But before you go rushing out to buy a brand new chainsaw, he said you are more likely to find a quality used chainsaw in the local classifieds for as much as or less than a brand new.
Porenta said chainsaws can be used to chop items blocking roadways or get through rubble to help rescue someone who is trapped.
The ease of cleaning and storing water is another measure Porenta highlighted.
“There are tons of amazing products that will help you with filtration,” he said, specifically mentioning a straw with a filter built-in that can clean up to 50 gallons of water directly. (A straw similar to what Porenta describes can be found here. )

PICTURE OF TODDLERS’ POTTY TRAINING IN THE MIDDLE OF A RESTAURANT DINING ROOM GOES VIRAL

Here’s how Decker described the incident at the Thanksgiving Point Deli:

“I noticed that this lady was having her two — she had two twins, two little girls about 2-and-a-half years old, sitting on what I thought were booster seats,” Decker said.

But after doing a double take, she realized they weren’t booster seats, they were child port-a-potties.

“She had to undo the jumpsuits, and take them all the way down so they were completely nude, with the jumpsuits down to their ankles just eating their chicken nuggets, sitting on little toddler potties,” Decker said.

 Although I try my hardest not to judge other moms, I was TOTALLY grossed out by the image of a mom potty training her nude toddlers while they snacked on chicken nuggets at a Utah restaurant.  Potty training stinks, no pun intended.  I’ve done it four times and I’m not looking forward to number five.

[...]

When people go out to eat, they deserve to enjoy their meal, not to be exposed to pooping toddlers.  And I’m leaving the smell and sanitation components out of it.  Sorry, but to me this mom made the wrong choice.

A spokesperson for the deli saying staff didn’t realize what was going on until it was too late. The restaurant received several complaints from patrons.

PRESIDENT OBAMA ISSUES MAJOR ‘GREEN ENERGY’ EXECUTIVE ORDER

Between conservatives focusing all their attention on the successes/failures of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., and the left having a meltdown over the supposed “racism” and unprecedented disrespect of Clint Eastwood’s “Empty Chair” routine, little attention has been given to an executive order issued last Thursday by President Barack Obama that targets industrial “efficiency” and carbon emissions.

“Today, we are taking another step to strengthen American manufacturing by boosting energy efficiency for businesses across the nation,” said President Obama.

“This action will cut costs, increase efficiency, and help our businesses create strong, middle class jobs.  We’ll continue to do everything we can to put more people back to work and build an economy that lasts,” he added.

The order, which aims to increase the number of cogeneration plants in the U.S. by 50 percent by 2020 and slash carbon emissions by 150 million tons per year, is the administration’s latest effort to “deploy cleaner and more efficient energy production in the country by working around political resistance to climate change and ‘green’ energy legislation on Capitol Hill,” Reuters reports.

“The Federal Government has limited but important authorities to overcome … barriers, and our efforts to support investment in industrial energy efficiency and CHP [Combined heat and power] should involve coordinated engagement with a broad set of stakeholders,” the order says.

Translation: If duly elected representatives of the people get in the way of “climate change” (formerly known as “global warming,“ formerly known as ”global cooling”) legislation, work around them.

“The man is legislating by presidential fiat!” conservative author and radio show host Mark Levin said Friday. “This is unconstitutional.”

The order dictates that the Departments of Energy, Commerce, and Agriculture, and the Environmental Protection Agency coordinate their actions to provide “policy and technical assistance” to states in order to ensure energy efficiency targets are being met.

What could possibly go wrong?

The order also “establishes a new national goal of 40 gigawatts of new combined heat and power capacity by 2020, a 50% increase from today,” according to a statement from the White House.

“Meeting this goal would save energy users $10 billion per year, result in $40 to $80 billion in new capital investment in manufacturing and other facilities that would create American jobs, and would reduce emissions equivalent to 25 million cars,” the statement adds.

Sure, it sounds nice and (like most things in this administration) it promises a great return on investment, but are there any possible downsides to this executive order?

“This is a fiat from on high for these utilities to change the way they process energy — anenormous capital expense and many of them are going to close down,” Levin argued. “And they only have eight years to do it as part of this ‘cap-and-trade,‘ ’green’ energy, ‘climate change’ bull crap.”

“You’re going to see your bills go up, up, and up some more. And you’re going to see brownouts and one day blackouts,” he added.

Pentagon: Ex-SEAL faces legal action for book

The Pentagon warned a former Navy SEAL that he faces legal action and loss of the profit for writing a book about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, according to a letter released Thursday night.

The letter, addressed to Mark Owen, the pseudonym forMatt Bissonnette, alleges that he broke two non-disclosure agreements. He signed the agreements after leaving the Navy in April 2012 and in 2007, and they prevent him from releasing classified information.

It was sent to Bissonnette by Jeh Johnson, the Pentagon's top lawyer.

"I write to formally advise you of your material breach and violation of your agreements, and to inform you that the (Pentagon) is considering pursuing against you, and all those acting in concert with you, all remedies legally available to us in light of this situation," Johnson wrote in the letter, which was sent in care of the publisher, Penguin Putnam.

The book, No Easy Day, gives a first-hand account of the May 2011 raid that killed bin Laden, the terror mastermind. Bissonnette did not submit the book to the Pentagon for pre-publication review as required by the military, according to the Pentagon.

Dutton, the publisher, has maintained that the book does not disclose secret information. It goes on sale Tuesday.

It's unclear how far the military is willing to go in punishing a member of the team that killed bin Laden after a decade on the run.

• 
  By Anjum Naveed, AP
  Pakistani army troops guard the perimeter of the compound where al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was caught and killed by U.S. forces in he letter, addressed to Mark Owen, the pseudonym forMatt Bissonnette, alleges that he broke two non-disclosure agreements. He signed the agreements after leaving the Navy in April 2012 and in 2007, and they prevent him from releasing classified information.

ROSEANNE BARR: MOST BILLIONAIRES ‘VIOLENT PEDOPHILES’ & ‘HEARTLESS’ COCAINE ADDICTS

“Comedienne” and aspiring presidential candidate Roseanne Barr took to Twitter for another one of her wild rants Sunday, alleging that the wealthy are predominantly violent, lawless criminals.

Barr began, seemingly taking the idea of “class warfare” to heart:

"most billionaires r violent pedophiles & consumers of violent pedo porn. they get a kick out of being heartless cruel empty cocaine addicts."

The actress then told readers to “feel free” to offer ideas on what she should do in her “first week in office” as president.

After re-tweeting a number of comments, including an FDR quote, Barr dramatically adjusted her tone and encouraged the country to build “unity and consensus”:

For those who don’t recall, Barr also called for the rich to be “beheaded” in an interview with Russia Today last year.

“[All] of my ideas R based in socialism. I’m the opposite of Ayn Rand, who was a capitalist fanatic free market fundamentalist,” she explained in her most recent tweet, as of this article’s publication.

Noel Sheppard at Newsbusters simply commented: “And this woman actually used to have her own television show.”

HANDWRITING EXPERT TO REVIEW OBAMA‘S SIGNATURE ON LETTERS TO FALLEN SEALS’ FAMILIES, WH DENIES ‘AUTOPEN’ CLAIMS

The Obama White House is denying claims that the letters sent to families of fallen Navy SEALs were signed by an electronic autopen that can replicate his signature. But a veterans group isn’t ready to just take the administration at its word and has vowed to get to the bottom of “autopen-gate,” FoxNews.com reports.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters on Friday that every letter sent to families of slain service members is signed by the hand of President Obama.

“The President signs every such letter personally,” he said.

Even so, Veterans for a Strong America, a nonpartisan military watchdog group, says it will hire a handwriting expert to determine whether the letters sent to the parents of Navy SEALs killed in Afghanistan were signed by the commander-in-chief or by the previously mentioned electronic autopen.

Karen and Billy Vaughn, whose son Aaron Vaughn was one of 17 SEALs and 13 other Americans killed in a helicopter crash Aug. 6, 2011, raised the issue at a Tea Party rally in Tampa during the Republican National Convention. Karen Vaughn said she compared the signature on her letter, dated Sept. 23, 2011, with those received by other families of SEALs and determined the signature was mechanical.

An autopen is a machine that can be programmed to duplicate an individual’s John Hancock. Seen as more personal than a stamp but less than a hand-signature, the device was first used in the White House by President Harry Truman. President Obama made history when he became the first chief executive to use the device to sign a bill, authorizing its use to extend key provisions of the Patriot Act last year while he was in France.

Aaron Vaughn was part of a rescue team that was sent to a mountainous area in the Wardak Providence in August of last year to assist an Army Ranger unit that was under heavy fire. The team had completed their mission but their Chinook helicopter was shot down as they were departing. Nearly 40 people perished, marking it one of the deadliest single incident losses in the decade-long war in Afghanistan.

“After reviewing letters from several families of fallen Navy SEALs, it appears that the letters may have been auto-penned, so we are going to have nationally recognized handwriting experts review the letters given the strong circumstantial evidence which exists in this case,” Joel Arends, chairman of Veterans for a Strong America said in a statement to FoxNews.com.

Arends is also peeved that the condolences were merely form letters, with only the names of the recipients changed. That’s something the White House had no choice but to admit — and they did. However, officials added that presidents have always sent form letters, especially when war deaths stack up.

According to FoxNews.com, Newsweek started a media firestorm in 2003 by reported that condolence letters from the President George W. Bush were form letters, “With the exception of the salutation and a reference to the fallen soldier in the text.”

Yet the Washington Times reported in 2008 that President Bush had also sent personalized letters to roughly 4,000 families of fallen soldiers and 9/11 victims. It was a gesture that reportedly went largely unrecognized by the media.

CJD Says No Pay for Orie Melvin During Her Interim Suspension

The state Court of Judicial Discipline has ordered that Justice Joan Orie Melvin not be paid during her interim suspension.

A six-judge panel of the CJD issued a 45-page opinion and order on Thursday, voting 5-1 to suspend Orie Melvin's pay.

The opinion, issued by Judge Robert E.J. Curran, said Orie Melvin was "so single-mindedly occupied with achieving personal aggrandizement that she pressured, intimidated and bullied her clerks and secretaries into performing work on her political campaigns in violation of a pledge each had made as a condition of their employment pursuant to an order of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania."

"This intimidation and bullying was relentless and continued over long periods of time," Curran said.

CJD President Judge Bernard L. McGinley dissented but did not file an opinion.

Orie Melvin was suspended in May from her duties on the state's high court after charges were filed against her for allegedly using her Superior Court judicial staff and the state Senate staff of her sister to help Orie Melvin run for Supreme Court.

"In these circumstances only an order of interim suspension which removes this respondent from the public payroll has any prospect of ameliorating the harm to the public's confidence in the judicial system which has been caused by respondent's conduct which has led to the pending charges against her," Curran said.

Curran was joined by Judges John W. Morris, Charles A. Clement Jr., John R. Cellucci and Timothy F. McCune.

Orie Melvin was charged by the Allegheny County District Attorney's Office on May 18 with nine criminal counts alleging she used legislative and judicial staff to perform campaign work.

On May 22, the CJD issued an order suspending Orie Melvin with pay based on the recommendation of the Judicial Conduct Board, but called a hearing in June to allow the parties to present testimony as to whether the order should stand or the justice should be suspended without pay.

During that hearing the JCB appeared to be uninterested in presenting testimony, instead joining Orie Melvin's attorney, William "Skip" Arbuckle III of the Mazza Law Group in State College, in urging the court to defer to the parties' stipulation that the justice remain on paid suspension.

JCB Deputy Chief Counsel Francis J. Puskas II did enter five items into evidence — the grand jury presentments and police complaints against both Orie Melvin and her sister, former state Senator Jane Orie, as well as witness testimony from Orie's preliminary hearing — but said the JCB did not wish to present live testimony and was instead taking the position that Orie Melvin's paid suspension should stand.

However, Curran, flanked by former President Judge Morris and Magisterial District Judge Clement Jr., said the parties' agreement "overlooks or ignores" the primary function of the CJD, which he said is to protect the integrity of the state's judicial system.

The court scheduled a second hearing for August 14, during which, according to thePittsburgh Post-Gazette, Puskas argued in favor of suspending Orie Melvin's pay.

In Thursday's opinion, Curran said the court based its ruling on the arguments at those two hearings as well as on "the charges contained in the criminal information filed by the District Attorney as well as the testimony which led the grand jury to make the recommendations set out in its presentment as well as the testimony and exhibits presented at the preliminary hearing."

According to Curran, Orie Melvin had argued that both the federal and state constitutions prohibit challenging a sitting judge's pay.

Orie Melvin also argued, according to Curran, that her pay should not be suspended because when public officials are impeached they continue to receive their pay until they're convicted by the Senate.

But Curran disagreed.

"This argument is off-point and unpersuasive, especially when one considers that the Constitution specifically bestows upon this court the authority to suspend a judge without pay for an interim period; and, indeed, we recognize that the conference of that authority subsumes the obligation to do so in a proper case," Curran said. "We think it is better that we look for policy guidance in that part of the Constitution which deals with our function rather than in those parts which don't."

Curran also rejected Orie Melvin's argument that the criminal charges against her are weak.

"We happen to think they are strong and that they describe conduct so egregious as to require respondent's interim suspension without pay," Curran said.

Curran prefaced the court's analysis of Orie Melvin's conduct by noting, "In the process we will necessarily be expressing our view on whether the evidence presented in support of the charges is 'weak' as counsel so persistently insists it is."

Curran said Orie Melvin and her counsel have maintained that the justice had no knowledge that any of her employees or her sister and office manager, Janine Orie, were engaging in illegal political activities.

"As a matter of fact, counsel challenged the board 'to point to any place in the transcript where evidence could be found which would establish otherwise,'" Curran said, quoting the transcript from the August 14 hearing. "We have accepted that challenge and have reviewed the notes of testimony of the preliminary hearing; and we found a record brimming with evidence establishing 'otherwise.'"

For example, Curran said, Lisa Sasinoski, who was Orie Melvin's chief law clerk on the Superior Court, testified at the preliminary hearing that she used to drive Orie Melvin to political events both during and after work hours and that she handed out political brochures and passed out nominating petitions at many of those events.

Sasinoski also testified that she and Orie Melvin would often talk about the speeches Sasinoski had written or helped write for the justice, according to Curran.

"We think it is likely that the commonwealth will be able to establish: that respondent knew it was Lisa Sasinoski who was driving the car; that respondent knew that it was Lisa Sasinoski who was helping her at the political events; that respondent knew who Lisa Sasinoski was and knew that she worked for her in her Superior Court office; that respondent knew that Lisa Sasinoski was paid by the Superior Court; that respondent knew that Lisa Sasinoski was not paid by her or by the 'Joan Orie Melvin Campaign'; that respondent knew that Lisa Sasinoski was prohibited from engaging in any 'partisan political activity' by an order of the Supreme Court; that respondent knew that Lisa Sasinoski was violating that order because she knew Lisa Sasinoski was a court-appointed employee and was engaging in partisan political activity on respondent's behalf; [and] that respondent knew that she was prohibited from diverting the services of Lisa Sasinoski for her own benefit by Section 3926(b) of the Pennsylvania Crimes Code which designated the crime as a felony," Curran said.

Curran also relied on the preliminary hearing testimony of another of Orie Melvin's former Superior Court clerks, Molly Creenan, who claimed that she had confronted Orie Melvin about having staff perform campaign work.

Creenan "practically begged her to stop demanding that the staff continue to violate the order prohibiting them from engaging in such political activity; but respondent didn't stop," according to Curran.

"Molly Creenan continued to get political assignments and when she refused to disobey the Supreme Court's order, respondent mocked her with a note asking 'Are you above this?'" Curran said. "This intimidation was backed up by loss of favor [of the boss and her deputy-sister], and discharge — and fear thereof. Respondent's judicial staffers were confronted with the prototypical 'Hobson's choice': their choice was either obey respondent's commands and risk being fired by the Supreme Court, or disobey her commands and risk being fired by her."

Arbuckle did not return a call for comment late Thursday afternoon.