Two stories of government amok continue to resonate, continue to demonstrate just how massive is the task before us – Peanut the Squirrel and the FEMA discriminatory practices. New details have emerged.

Little publicized – Peanut did NOT have rabies. Please recall, rabies was the reason cited for the animal’s destruction, so I did a deep dive into the necessity of such. This is purely a procedural thing. The only 100% reliable way to test for rabies is to destroy the animal and test its brain tissue. However, blood tests combined with behavioral observation is generally considered reliable in household pets. (With wild animals there is no control information against which to compare behavioral observations.) Regulations vary significantly by jurisdiction. In the end Peanut’s mandated immediate destruction lies in his designation as a wild animal – a designation made in spite of the fact that there is ample video evidence that the squirrel was effectively a pet – the “wild animal” designation made out of habit, not reality. (Not to mention the distinct possibility of retribution since Peanut did bite one of the officials.)

The Peanut case is a case of a bureaucracy being too bureaucratic. The wheels crank without thought or judgement – as if the animal, and the lives of the animal’s keepers, were destroyed by a machine. It is a story of the absence of humanity where it should have been present. This is a tale as old as man has organized.

But the FEMA story is quite different. The fired FEMA employee has gone public, and she is claiming, as I suspected from the outset, that she is being scapegoated for much wider behavior in the agency:

According to the recently disgraced Washington, “FEMA preaches avoidance” of potentially contentious situations.

And, supposedly, Trump supporters are disproportionately responsible for fomenting such situations.

Washington said her team had encountered “political hostility” from those in homes with “Trump campaign signage,” but nevertheless insisted that agency guidance is — and her own determination was — about safety, not political targeting.

Another former FEMA employee also told The Post that the processes that led to Washington’s discriminatory action are systemic — and that the bias against Trump supporters dated back years, sometimes justified as part of an effort to serve “marginalized” communities first.

Let’s conduct a thought experiment. The inevitable “Big One” hits Southern California, leaving South Central LA in ruins. The predominantly African American area is covered in gang-related graffiti and quite prone to street violence. Firearms are plentiful. Therefore, FEMA decides to avoid it out of “an abundance of caution.” How loud would be the protests? How massive would be the outcry?

But that blatant discrimination is an issue for the media that is clearly going along with the FEMA efforts at cover-up. But to hide behind “safety” as an excuse for political targeting is just pure bull manure, as is the whole “marginalized community” thing.

To the extent that this is discussed at all, I fear the discussion will bog down in the excuses, missing the thread. I fear all this will cloud what is a clear-cut issue – political targeting was practiced, regardless of the ~~reasons~~, er excuses. That is banana republic stuff and there is no excuse. At a minimum, the federal agencies have lost the thread of what they are supposed to be about. Even in the highly unlikely event that this was an isolated incident (just the only one where the abuse is in writing) the agency is complicit by enacting policies that enabled it and in failing to train their people that political targeting for any reason was forbidden.

The agencies responsible for the seizure and destruction of Peanut should compensate, in significant amounts, the squirrel’s keepers for their loss of income and affection. They should issue a public apology and undergo a very public process of reform – restoring the humanity to the bureaucratic machine.

FEMA is a very different story. Investigations should be convened in both the Senate and the House as soon as the new Congress is seated and the appropriate committees identified. In all likelihood, those investigations should recommend the agency be disbanded and its mission returned to DHS for management by new means. The FEMA administrator is a Senate confirmed, political appointment. That needs to be rethought. Any agency that might replace it needs to be completely scrubbed of political considerations.

Something is rotten in the heart of government. It needs to be removed. FEMA may be the starting point, but it is not the end game.

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