W are you ever going to solve the problem if you dont look at all of the pieces . Tv and radio talk show host Stephanie Miller rounds out currents morning news block. Youre welcome current tv audience for the visual candy. Sharp tongue, quick whit and above all, politically direct. You just think there is no low they wont go to. Oh, no. If al gores watching today. Announcer heard around the country and seen on current tv announcer this is the bill press show. Bill all right. 26 minutes after the hour. Talking about it many different ways here on the bill press show. Many ditch ways Hurricane Sandy has impacted this election both in terms of the physical impact and in terms of the message of the campaign. Peter, we were talking during the break early voting is another way. It shut down Campaign Events. The state of maryland and other states have shut down early voting. And also think about there are a lot of polling places that are are either going to be wiped out or not ready in some coastal areas particularly parts of virginia, delaware, may have to find new polling places or whatever. Across the board. A lot of people without power and not to make this too political but you look at swing states like virginia, a lot of people without power in virginia. 500,000 people without power in pennsylvania. Obviously youve got new york and new jersey and the District Of Columbia and maryland. It is a week away. Bill another impact, too for the last four nights, certainly, the network news has started out the first 15 minutes has been about the storm. The approach of the storm. The impact of the storm. Last night in fact, the networks went to one hour and there was like no politics in it. It was all except for the ads that you get. Bill peoples attention not on the election. Janine is calling from the hudson river valley. Hi. Caller how are you mr. Press . Bill bill, thank you. Great. Caller bill, i just wanted to make a comment about what you said about the federal governments role in disasters. I agree with you. If mitt romney is elected, it would be a disaster. This man wants to have 50 states doing 50 different things. How can we have a country like that . Bill you cant. By the way, you would have some idiot governors right like there were idiot governors who refused to take stimulus money. Like the one down in louisiana. Bill thats the guy i was talking about. Bobby jindal. There are governors that refuse to take highspeed rail money right. Caller thats unbelievable because in europe, you dont have to fly everywhere. It would advance the country. I dont understand the retch can thinking. Bill i think sandy really proves that this republican thinking is not good for our country. It doesnt fit the needs of americans and it just shows how shallow and wrong mitt romneys whole philosophy is. Just think about Hurricane Sandy. Announcer this is the bill press show. Stages of a plan they hatched back probably at reagans time or before that when theyve had successful democracy depended on an informed electorate. Our countrys future depends on you. To help you make informed decisions, watch current tvs politically direct lineup. Only on current tv. Take the time to learn about the issues. Dont just vote, vote smart. Obama the election will take care of itself next week. Right now our number one priority is to make sure we are saving lives. Announcer heard around the country and seen on current tv, this is the bill press show. Bill president obama on the job yesterday at the white house, commander in chief for Hurricane Sandy. Back to your calls about how this election how the storm impacts the election. First, here is a little item that caught my attention. Even members of the armed services, subject to Identity Theft. Story out of washington state. Officials raided several locations in washington state. Finding that hundreds of people including active duty military personnel had their identities stolen. You hear a story like that. You need some protection against Identity Theft. I recommend what ive got. Lifelock ultimate. I recommend it. It includes keeping track of your bank accounts. But of course, lifelock cant protect you or your bank account if youre not a member. Call now and mention press 60 for 60 riskfree days of lifelock ultimate Identity Theft protection. If youre not happy call within another 60 days and cancel and get a full refund. Give them a call at 8003565967 for lifelock ultimate. 18003565967. Were tweeting at bpshow. One thing i wanted to point out. Bill cornbread not war. I like that. When you dont have power you dont have time to fix your hair. Forgive me. Im wearing a baseball cap. Bill i can wear my nats cap. One thing i noticed on twitter were the enthusiastic tweets of people thanking the United States postal service. They got the mail on time out yesterday all along the east coast. Several tweets about that. I just wanted to point that out. Bill they werent shut down . No. They were delivering mail yesterday. Bill even during a hurricane. Their slogan, neither rain, nor sleet they got it there. One person points out in a time like this, who would you rather have president . A Community Organizer or a businessman . Good point. Jim irwin on the political side tweeting will Hurricane Sandy make for paper ballots rather than electronic in states where the power is down . The idea of what were going to do about election day is starting to loom. Thats going to be, i think the next big thing. Bill it is because the storm is going to be around for so long and the focus immediately after lets say by today right. Maybe in parts of jersey and delaware and even here in the d. C. Area, it will be clean up rather than more storm. Were not dealing with storm so much as cleanup. That will take a couple of days. Six and a half Million People are without power. Six and a half Million People are without power and were a week away from an election. Bill charles calling from tampa, florida. Hey, charles. Caller good morning, bill. I just want to fema sent trailers down here years ago to be used. Fema said you have to take them. Florida wanted to give them back to fema to be used. Fema said no. They stay where theyre at. They were never used. Thats one of the examples i think where fema comes into a state telling the state youre taking them. But we dont want them back. Now i dont think thats right. I think that they should have been used somewhere else when needed. But fema didnt want them. They go nope. Theyre your problem. They were parked i dont know for how long. I think they finally got them destroyed because they were never used. Bill i dont know anything about that, charles but i do know this. Thats not the way fema works today. I think you have to look at the way fema works today and the way it has worked since president obama has been in the white house. Again, it is not just me saying this theres been nothing but praise for fema and craig if fugate from republican governors. Mcdonnell in virginia. Chris christie in new jersey. Even bobby jindal in louisiana. Have praised the fact right now there is a Close Partnership between the white house and the governors republican and democratic governors. But listen talk about fema. Paul ryan, his budget cut New York Times reports this morning. Congressional republicans cut 43 out of the primary fema grants that pay for disaster preparedness. Remember eric cantor. Remember peter, eric cantor, the hurricane struck his district fema wanted to go in there. They wanted more money because of some of the disasters. They asked for more money to deal with the earthquake. Even in cantors district. He said no. Were not going to give fema anymore money unless you cut money from healthcare, you know. So theyve been antiDisaster Relief and again, mitt romney who wants to give it to the states, get rid of fema, put it in the hands of the state or maybe the private sector. Can you imagine, can you imagine with this hurricane hitting the coast like new jersey or atlantic city, if you had to count on who . Name it. Some some security firm, blackwell. Or something. Halliburton. There are pictures of firefighters in water up to their chests wading through streets of new york and parks to get to people who help them. They were fighting fires in the middle of a hurricane. They were dealing with buildings that had collapsed in the middle of a hurricane. Bill you look at the First Responders rescuing those people in the hms bounty that went down. Can you imagine halliburton doing it . We took the day off. Exactly. Bill because its raining. Arnold, our rowing ambassador down in greensboro, North Carolina. What do you say . Good morning bill. Im happy to talk about that. Where that storm landed, they shouldnt call it sandy. They should call it slicky. This guy in virginia, the governor mcdonnell man, he lost his campaign when he came into office, hes saying im so tired of the federal government putting their nose into everything and he was he declared 21 counties i mean way ahead of time. Bill i know. Caller disaster areas. Bill arnold, theyre the first ones to have their hand out. Gimme gimme gimme gimme gimme. Bill first ones to have their hand out. Caller i tell you he signed legislation to keep the government off his back but his daughter got pregnant by rape, he wants to Big Government in her womb and stuff. Whats going on with these people . Bill they preach one thing and practice another arnold is the short answer. But again and i think that the New York Times headline sums it up. A big storm requires Big Government. I cant stress it too much. To me, this sums up the entire election so far. The whole choice between romney and obama hinges on this question. Is there a role for the federal government or not . And romney believes there is not. He wants to privatize giving it to states or privatize everything. Everything from healthcare to the economy. And a time when the governments gotta step in to help, for example, our Auto Industry. To even Disaster Relief. And so yeah, if if lets say North Carolinas doing a good job the governor of North Carolina is doing a good job, then they get Disaster Relief. But if you got a governor, im saying maybe like in mississippi who doesnt give a crap and doesnt have anything in place the people of mississippi suffer. Thats why you need fema. And remember, jimmy carter made fema a cabinet agency. George bush, bill clinton tao too. George w. Bush put it in the bowels of the homeland security. Then remember what happened with katrina. Bill down in san antonio hello, kathy. Caller good morning, bill. Thank you for giving us a sane alternative. Bill to you know what. Yes. Caller i wanted to say one of the problems was bill hey, turn your radio or tv down in the background. Caller sorry. Bill little distracting. Thats it. All right. Caller there are problems, situations that are too vast for the states. One being which was one i think one of the first accomplishments of the Obama Administration was the development and the dissemination of the vaccine for that new virus that popped up, h1n1. It killed the group in between and that was an unbelievable accomplishment and the democrats never brag about it. Bill i forgot about that. But there are many, many, many roles where things look at our federal interstate highway system, right . Look at the air traffic airtraffic controller system. There are some things look at the defense of our country. But it is not just the military. Theres some things look at our Transportation System that government does better, where the role of government is necessary to bring all of us together because what is a government . The government is just us working together to solve problems and to create a better america. So this antigovernment rhetoric from paul ryan, from the tea party, hating government and from mitt romney, thats what hes all about. Hurricane sandy proves that is dangerous. Not just wrong. Dangerous. Dangerous for america. Think of Hurricane Sandy. Speaking of, well talk to ray stojic from the Weather Channel next on the full court press. Announcer this is the bill press show. Live on your radio and current tv. Only on current tv. Dose of politics from a fresh perspective. Im a slutty bob hope. The troops love me. Only on current tv. The one time its okay for you to miss my show is if thats the only time you can get to a polling place. Make sure that voting is your highest priority on election day. Besides, you can always dvr my show. You really cant dvr the future of the country. To help you make informed decisions, watch current tvs politically direct lineup. Only on current tv. So vote and vote smart. Announcer radio meets television. The bill press show. Now on current tv. Announcer this is the full court press. The bill press show. Live on your radio and on current tv. Bill 13 minutes before the top of the hour. Were going to check in with the current tvs David Shuster in new york city in the next hour. Right now to get the latest on Hurricane Sandy hes been good to be with us the last two days here. Joining us again this morning meteorologist ray stagich from the Weather Channel. Hello, ray. Good morning. So i have to i must say that in terms of force and impact, Hurricane Sandy has lived up to its expectations and advanced billing, didnt it . It certainly did. There are spots and of course my family back at home in new york state saying that was uneventful. In the valley, Hudson Valley of new york state. Believe it or not significant flooding even that far north on some of the creeks in the hudson river, too. So widespread impacts across a great stretch of land. Right now youve got rain showers as far south as South Carolina. And rain and thunderstorms as far north as northern maine. And rain and snow as far west as grand rapids, michigan and it is still going across lake michigan. Unbelievable. Bill is the jersey shore and Lower Manhattan are they the areas that have been hardest hit . Yes. Long island, too. I havent heard much out of coastal connecticut rhode island, i have to imagine they got slammed pretty hard. The latest i had was 81 of long island without power. Close to nine million customers without power across the midatlantic northeast new england, prediction was ten million. Ive got to imagine theres going to be more. Record surge or water rise in places like battery park, a record low pressure for that far north in latitude in terms of barometric pressure. I believe at one point, it was 940 millibars. Then for me, people have been asking me, you know, what has been the most amazing part of this storm. Those other things are Pretty Amazing in itself. Im more amazed by having a landfalling hurricane and 18 inches of snow in davis, west virginia. That i think is what blew everybodys mind. How did that happen . You know, it has all been a function of everything being in the right place at the right time. Storm formed in the right spot. Trough came in with the colder air in the right spot. Everything set up almost perfect to give the quoteunquote perfect storm sandy, whatever people are calling it now. Now it is a get this, it is a posttropical cyclone sandy so it no longer has that warm core. Dont ask me to explain it. I wasnt sure what exactly it was that hit us. Posttropical cyclone. It has been handed off from the National Hurricane center because it is no longer tropical. To the hydro Meteorological Prediction Center which means it is a rain event now. Bill where is it now . And where are we headed . It is 50 miles east of york, pennsylvania. 90 miles west of philadelphia. Right along the pennsylvania maryland border moving west and it is going to get pulled north and northeast and head through western new york state as a weakening tropical depression or weakening storm lets put it that way in laymans terms. It is snowing in parts of ohio, west virginia, even kentucky now. Southern parts of the appalachians as far south as the mountains of North Carolina and tennessee and the rain extends all the way north with maybe a severe thunderstorm watch coming out for parts of new england. It will weaken but its going to be a long, drawn out process. I think for the areas that got worst hit however the damage is done. Most likely left over showers in and around new york city, coastal jersey. Even in through the interior of new jersey where they had some flooding too. But the worst done in terms of the wind too were gusts over 90 Miles Per Hour. Islip and jfk airport. Bill the flooding recede automatically . I was wondering because there is this all of the factors including the full moon. So everything is tides are higher right . Tides are higher. The water is still going to come up, i believe around 9 00 is the next high tide for lets go with battery park. That seems to be the place thats in the headlines. The thinking is that the water isnt going to rise as high. May not even flood again. But still youll have above average or above normal tides but not expecting the water to rise as high as we had with the record rate of the water rise yesterday. Bill youve never seen a storm like this . Not in my lifetime and im 40 some years old. Superstorm 93 was close but i was in new york at that time. It was a big snow event. You know but like i said, for me, it is the snow with the hurricane that kind of really got me on this one. Bill i have to say having grown up on the east coast before i went