I grew up in a town very similar to West, Texas. We had a grain elevator and a big propane storage tank a couple of blocks from Main Street, and an all-volunteer fire department, so I guess we were just lucky that nothing like this happened. West wasn’t as lucky, and it’s tragic that eight of the confirmed dead are firefighters, some of them not even members of the West volunteers, who just happened to be in the area and pitched in. It’s a devastating scene and, as President Obama said last night, we’re going to make sure that the people of West get all the help we can give them as they bury their dead and rebuild their town.
Unfortunately, the asshole that these people elected to the Senate, Texas’ answer to Joe McCarthy, Canadian-born Ted Cruz, voted against Sandy relief 3 times. If you live in the state with the most FEMA-declared natural disasters since 2009, maybe you’d want to rethink your choice of Senator next time you visit the polls.
GregB
I think someone needs to drop the stupid Senate decorum and call Cruz a miserable, selfish sack of shit to his face.
Sgaile-beairt
NO NO DON”T LOOK AT US!! LOOK OVER THERE AT THE SCARY SCARY IMMIGRANTS, WHO MAKE BOMBS!! CMON WHO DO YOU THINK IS MORE DANGEROUS TO YOUR COMMUNITY?!
//all the wingnuts ever
MobiusKlein
Ad right underneath – ‘simcity’
Perhaps the rulers of Texas should try the game before they do it IRL.
hildebrand
Everyone who votes for aid needs to say, ‘see, this is how it is supposed to be done.’
MattF
FWIW, the Village is firing off SOS/Bat Signal Light flares on the subject of Sen. Cruz:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-sen-ted-cruz-proving-a-talkative-headache-for-gop-leaders/2013/04/18/5197da40-a883-11e2-a8e2-5b98cb59187f_story.html
I just can’t quite bring myself to feel any sympathy for Grassley or Graham.
BobbyK
Um, why do we have to give these assholes money? Fuckem they made their bed let ’em sleep in it. I GUARANTEE you if the government gave this state money tomorrow and another disaster happened in NY next week EVERYONE of the assholes from the texas delegation that voted against Sandy relief would vote against relief for the new disaster-guaranteed.
piratedan
@GregB: let’s not forget that he’s a condescending asshat as well. It’s never personal with Republicans unless it’s happening to effect their family or someone they know. They have an empathic range barrier that kicks in that blocks out all sense of normalcy, shame that science hasn’t isolated that gene yet.
Sgaile-beairt
also NPR was just a week or 2 ago doing a series on huge #s of people killed by grain elevators & how the regulating agencies ar e just as tough on the corprate perps who send untrained kids into unsafe illegal situations, as they are on mining co owners….
and yeah tons of fire & rescue people get hurt/ killed in those grain silo burials too, trying to save the workers, and the massive expense of the rescue operations, is all on taxpayers, bc the perps just get wrist slap fines….
Ben Franklin
Texas–Safe for bizness—other living things, not so much.
Insurance Co’s love the state. They are bizness friendly.
My Dad was born and raised there. Every time he would go back to visit I asked ‘why?’
“The people” was his reply. His last visit, hobbled by heart disease and diabetes, he was hospitalized, and since he had no assigned physician, he was assigned a husband/wife team who waited in line with other Drs. in the Emergency Room and got their turn. His Dr.s would not let him manage his diabetes, insisting on controlling his meds and keeping him confused and disoriented. I had to fly there and get him released. I enlisted the help of nurses and a Dr on duty to bypass the incompetent, ethically challenged pair and got him on a plane for home.
Love the People, hate the fucking State.
the Conster
So, they don’t want to secede now? Gubmint handouts are looking pretty good? I was watching that asshat Conryn trying to thread a needle in his speech to the media last night, and boy, wingnuts just can’t do “the government is here to help you”. It’s always terrible when first responders bear the brunt of failed policy, but it’s hard to give a shit.
dr. bloor
@BobbyK: Sentiment appreciated, but assholes have always been with us and always will be with us. The test of a civilized, empathic society is to do the right thing knowing that it won’t be reciprocated or appreciated (in the larger sense).
Feudalism Now!
No inspections since ’85 and lack of infrastructure to deal with a fire at the plant. Those VOlunteers went into an impossible situation and saved many lives while losing many of their own.
Cruz is a sack of dung, but he knows the money will come to his constituents because he counts on everyone else being humane while he stays a shitheel. Every yes vote for aid should contain a statement of ‘in spite of Sen. Cruz objection to helping Americans, we will do the right thing.’ Or tie in more Sandy relief to the West aid package.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Sgaile-beairt:
The football field at my high school was named after two students who were killed in a grain elevator. There just weren’t enough things to name after the teenagers killed in tractor rollovers, falls from high places, incidents with power equipment and other farm tragedies.
farming is more dangerous than mining, and a lot of it is done by untrained young people.
Higgs Boson's Mate
Why rethink? Cruz was trying to make sure that the disaster relief money was saved for Real Americans Who Have Earned It.
mellowjohn
like that’s ever gonna happen.
scav
Quick little photoshop of the Google imagery, swapping in some massive pressure cookers on the edge of town . . .
Anya
Why the fuck is this important? This is feeding into xenophobia and it’s unworthy of a liberal blogger. Are my cousins who are born in other countries less American than me and my American born cousins?
Tbone
Has any elected official called Cruz on his hypocritical bullshit yet? Can Obama at least say to Rick Perry “Ok, time to cut the secessionist bullshit?”
Can’t someone please step up here?
My parents owned a grain elevator in a small town in Iowa, about 2000 people. The inside of that thing looked like something straight out of a Saw movie. I’m talking inches of grain dust sitting on electrical equipment.
Damn near every year there was an explosion somewhere in the midwest. Thankfully our town only had 1 death, someone who suffocated in a grain bin.
TriassicSands
Not if you’re a proud Texan. After all, Texas is not only the largest state (forgetting that late-coming usurper up by the North Pole), but it used to be its own country. That’s why they can just secede at the drop of a hat, because when they deigned to give up their nationhood, they didn’t give up the right to re-declare it, should statehood not prove advantageous.
We sneer at all the idiotic talk of secession by right wing cretins, but I know more than a few people who would welcome the withdrawal of Texas from the Union. Then, Rick Perry could be president of a country without having to go through all that embarrassing campaigning again and Ted Cruz could be Ambassador to the United States. I was going to give him the post at the UN, but then I realized, there’s no way Texas would join the UN, not with its designs on one world government.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@Ben Franklin: I grew up in Texas. It’s beautiful country in places, but miserable in others. Some of the people are great, some are assholes, just like anywhere else.
All that said, I like seasons, and a Democratic state government (albeit corrupt), so I won’t be going back unless dragged by my heels.
MattF
@TriassicSands: There’s also the “We’ll send this asshole to Washington so he’ll spend less time here” aspect of Cruz’s election.
Schlemizel
@hildebrand:
What I would like would be for one of the Senators to point out how some Senators vote against aid to other parts of the country but want it for their own. I’l like them to point out that they are voting for aid to Texas IN SPITE OF their Senators votes because thats what civilized nations do, they take care of each other when in need knowing full well it may be their turn some day.
Do onto others as you would have done onto you.
Michael G
I’m going to be that guy here: Are federal disaster funds actually appropriate in this case?
I thought they were intended for devastation on a level that would wipe out a state’s finances. But compared to, say, a hurricane wiping out Houston, even though West is a terrible tragedy, financially it seems like small potatoes. And it seems like the type of thing that Texas could easily financially handle on its own.
Sgaile-beairt
@Ultraviolet Thunder: its not just that i t’s more dangerous overall, this is a well=known practice to make more money by thwarting safety regulations, ‘walking down the grain” when it gets stuck : here is the main story page, the worst part was the weasel guy from the government saying, “oh were making a difference’ by being nice & hoping the perps will voluntarily start behaving even when we slash their fines to nothing….
http://www.npr.org/about/press/2013/032413.NPRCPIBuriedInGrain.html
Damned at Random
I wonder if the volunteer firefighters in West had specific training on the types of chemical fires which could occur in a large fertilizer plant. I’m guessing that one of the attractions of West to the plant owners was low local taxes (kept low by use of volunteers exclusively in public safety positions) and a compliant local government grateful for the jobs provided.
Schlemizel
@TriassicSands:
As a resident of a semi-civilized section I for one would loudly cheer Texas going its own way. I would only demand payment for all the Federal improvements to the place. “Freed” from the burden of Federal money flowing into the state and left to the tender mercies of the cheap labor crowd they would become a failed third-world state pretty quickly.
That would serve as a good object lesson to the rest of the mouth-breathing morans around the country
Sgaile-beairt
@Feudalism Now!: someone on the dallas Morning news article said, in rx to those claims that there was no danger, So i guess TX City never happened, then….
http://www.texascity-library.org/disaster/index.php
Bump on a Log
Shouldn’t the grain elevator’s owners, or their insurance company, be paying for this? I can’t see where this tragedy comes under FEMA’s jurisdiction at all.
Todd
Speaking of wingnut stupidity, apparently, Sam Brownback scribbled the Holy Couple’s names (Jesus + Mary – he only omitted TLF) on top of his notes on his fanatic anti-abortion bill. To my thinking, it is both pharisaicism and just plain bugshit insanity, as if he needed a reminder of the religious purpose of the bill.
http://gawker.com/5995130/jesus-%252B-mary-make-headline-appearance-in-anti+abortion-bill-signing
I’m really upset that we never got the FEMA reeducation camps for conservative white Christians that Obama promised us. This Bronze Age tribal goatherd apocalyptic death cult cannot wither away fast enough for me.
Sgaile-beairt
@Damned at Random: at least some ppl in TX, still remember 1947 galveston hrbr, there were early comments mentioningn it, on the dallas news report….
Damned at Random
I should read the whole thread befote commenting. Feudalism Now made the same point earlier
Steve
Save some contempt for their Congressjerk, Bill Flores, a former oil company executive, who also voted against Sandy Relief. Grab a shovel, Bill.
Davis X. Machina
@Anya: Presidential eligibility. Same thing with Sen./Gov. Granholm, and Gov. Schwartzenegger a few years ago
Sgaile-beairt
@scav: +1
ETA actually that wldnt be a bad idea to do w places that have these….kind of like those ‘nuke in yr neighbrhood” map apps…
Gopher2b
I feel bad for them but decisions have consequences. If I was in Congress, I wouldn’t send them a dime and I would be very explicit about my reasons, Cruz and their Congressman. Sorry, but its true.
SatanicPanic
@Michael G: That’s a good point. This strikes me as not even being on the level of a large tornado. Surely Texas can pay for this itself.
Cermet
@the Conster: And lets not forget the lack of training for the threat that the plant was to the community and any responders. (I assume they didn’t know – hard to believe they did and ignored their training – I refuse to believe that possiblity.)
As the person here posted about that deadly chemical, when it is on fire, it cannot have water used on it or explosions are possible.
I could see, just before the explosion in one of the films, a stream of water falling on the fire/chemicals just before the terrible explosion.
It is one thing to save money by using volunteer fireman but not to train them? Considering this was a known threat, that would have been covered by anyone bothering to train on threats. This was just insane that they refused to pay for training (the state) but I guess that is the texasshole way to swing.
Also, they did not cause that asshole to vote as he did, so they should not suffer for that ass wipe’s vote. These are people in terrible need and should get all our support. So many people were killed and injured.
SatanicPanic
@Schlemizel: I’d prefer we wait around another 6-10 years to find out if the state will go blue. Blue Texas = freedom to ignore the idiots forever
Tokyokie
I’ve been through West dozens of times, frequently stopping at a butcher shop that made wonderful sausage that lay along those railroad tracks, between the fertilizer plant and downtown. I once took a Czech acquaintance to the offices of the Czech-language newspaper downtown. Would go to the bakery on the town square for the good kolaches. (The Czech acquaintance set me straight, that the ones at Czech Stop alongside the interstate aren’t as good as the ones we got at the downtown place, but Czech Stop keeps very late hours and is real convenient if you’re driving between Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin-San Antonio.) I bought a wedding present for my niece at the nice antique store downtown. I really like the place, and this tragedy makes me feel awful.
But having that sack of crap Ted Cruz as one of my senators just makes me sick. When I called his office to register my views on gun control (during working hours), I was rolled over to his answering machine, and it was already full and I couldn’t leave a message.
The Ancient Randonneur
Anyone gotten a comment from Rep. Peter King yet? That might be quite entertaining.
scav
@Cermet: Plant hadn’t told the govt or DHS what boomy dangerous stuff it had lying about. wrote that it didn’t expect a fire or blast to be any problem. With all the information provided them, those highly trained firefighters would also have to be psychic.
Anya
@Davis X. Machina: Is he running for president right now? Also, as I understand it his mother is a natural born so even that does not apply to douchebag Cruz. What is the fucking point of mentioning his place of birth when talking about his callous Sandy vote.
Violet
@Anya: Because Cruz is being talked up as a potential Presidential candidate. He was born in Canada. It’s an eligibility issue. For the average American born in another country, no, it doesn’t matter unless they want to run for President.
RepubAnon
@BobbyK: Precisely – I say that all the Senators from states affected by Hurricane Sandy should filibuster any relief bill for Texas until Senator Cruz gets up on the floor of the Senate, makes a public apology, and promises to mend his ways.
Until then, if Texas voters want to be a moocher state that simultaneously cuts its own taxes while seeking handouts from states with higher tax rates, let them find out what “going Galt:” is all about. If they want to rejoin the community, let them elect representatives that will do unto Hurricane Sandy victims as they would have Hurricane Sandy victims do unto the City of West victims.
(Oh, by the way – maybe having zoning ordinances that separate residential neighborhoods from a business storing explosive fertilizer and large quantities of anhydrous ammonia aren’t such a bad idea. I’m all for personal freedom, but not when one person’s freedom poses risks to others. I’m not sure whether the fertilizer factory was built before the residential housing, or vice versa, but I am sure that the freedom to have residential housing within the catastrophic failure radius of an industrial site is somewhat like giving people a right to swing swords on crowded sidewalks. Bad idea.
Mike in NC
@Violet:
Does this mean we’ll be denied the awesomeness of Rand Paul & Ted Cruz in 2016? The fact that his last name ends with a “Z” will have the GOP convinced they’ll rack up 80% of the Hispanic vote!
Sgaile-beairt
fyi it was exactly the same thing in TX city disaster, ships full of fertilizer in galveston harbor, water made it worse (thats why people were so scornful of what the west plant report said)) lead to multiple explosions….oh and there was also ammuniton on one of the ships….
maya
The plant originally was a grain storage facility built in 1957 or 1962. It’s been owned by the same person, Donald Adair, all along.
Probably no relation to Paul ‘Red’ Adair.
RoonieRoo
Grumpy Code Monkey is driving through West (or rather by) today on his way up to Dallas. It’s one of those places that a lot of people drive by.
For all the wishes about what will happen to Cruz or that karma will bite him in the tuckus, we all know what will happen. Texas will get its federal aid and then the next state that needs relief the same thing that happened with Sandy will happen. Cornyn and Cruz will vote against it.
Why on earth wouldn’t they? There is and will never be any negative consequence for them. Federal Aid won’t ever be withheld from Texas and Cruz/Cornyn will never not win re-election as long as they run.
Cacti
@TriassicSands:
Meanwhile, in the real world, there is nothing in the joint Congressional resolution, the state’s official annexation papers, or any other contemporaneous documents that identifies any right of Texas to secede.
In Texas v. White (1869), the Supreme Court also slapped down the idea that the Constitution recognizes the right of any state to unilaterally secede from the union.
Go peddle that Texas-sized load of bullshit about a “right to secede” somewhere else. It only exists in Texans’ imaginations.
Davis X. Machina
@maya: Or Buck Strickland…
cckids
@RepubAnon: From what I’ve read, the factory was there & the town grew up around it. Little to no zoning distance requirements, it seems.
You’ll notice what types of people & operations were put in the danger zone – nursing home, low-rent apartments, schools. You know, the expendable ones. If they had any real money or power, they’d live somewhere else.
Morzer
@MobiusKlein:
You really want to see the state of Texas paying for all those monitors shot by enraged Republicans after the ‘traitor’ game proves that free market principuls and freedumb just don’t work like they ‘should’?
Anya
@Violet: I am not a legal scholar so I won’t even argue whether someone born to U.S. citizens in a foreign country qualifies as natural-born citizen, however, I am just bothered by us going to root of birthers and other undesirables. We are better than that.
Chris
@TriassicSands:
I doubt if it’s more than empty bluster for, like, ninety percent of those who talk about secession, and that they wouldn’t blink if it ever actually came on the table. (Like Social Security privatization).
Although, with all that oil, Texas is probably one of the few red states that actually COULD hold its own if it went independent. It’d be a Saudi style resource economy, with some Central American sweatshop economy thrown in, but still.
Patrick
@Gopher2b:
Ted Cruz and the other tea baggers voted against aid to Sandy victims unless there was an equal cut to something else in the Federal budget
Fine. You can have the aid you don’t deserve, while we cut some federal defense related project in Texas with the same amount. It is consistent with teabagger criteria and it won’t cost the rest of us non-hypocrites a dime.
scav
@cckids: I’ve read the same thing, town grew toward the plant and nobody anything thought about it (comments from residents over the last few days). Didn’t recognize it as dangerous or a problem. It’s just another of those things on the rural landscape.
Lokahi
@Michael G: Can’t help but wonder the same–this is a private facility, owned by a private individual, operated for private profit and gain. Hold the owner(s) accountable first and foremost (and use Federal funds to assist the real, not the corporate, victims).
Tripod
I’m sure a sloppy regulatory and reporting environment have nothing to do with product ending up in meth labs.
OmerosPeanut
@MobiusKlein: They tried but couldn’t connect to server.
cmorenc
WHICH EXPLOSION killed over 10x more people than the other?
1) Boston Marathon bombing, caused by nihlistic young ethnic Chechans;
2) Texas Fertilizer plant explosion, caused by a bunch of slack-witted, anti-government crackers deliberately placing schools and houses in close proximity with tons of volatile explosive material used in bombs?
Bonus question: which perps does Sen Lindsey Graham think deserve to be treated as enemy combatants, to be subject to harsh interrogation, and not deserving trial through the US justice system?
hildebrand
@Chris: Everything from San Antonio to the Rio Grande Valley could become their own state (taking Austin and Houston as protected cities – like Berlin during the good old days) whilst the rest of the state could go galt to their heart’s content.
I am not a kook
Mistermix, I would also like to know why you think “Canadian-born” is a relevant description here, used in a derogatory manner.
Somebody mentioned “presidential eligibility” – what does that have to do with anything relevant to this story?
maya
@Anya: The Obama “birther” nonsense started with an alleged tape recording of Obama’s grandmother (in Kenya) allegedly stating that she saw Barrack when he was born in the hospital there. Or something similar to that. The sinister tape was never produced. The birther conspiracy movement grew in the bowels of that allegation then passed through the rectum of the Teapeers and plopped into the media toilet. It’s been circling the drain ever since, usually when The Great Combover jiggles the handle.
TriassicSands
@Cacti:
I guess I had to sneer in capital letters to get you to realize that I don’t buy their secessionist nonsense at all. Apparently, the tone of my comment was insufficiently mocking. The claim about a right to secede is simply the tripe that I’ve heard actual Texans proclaim over the years. “We were a country before we joined the United States. Nothing is stopping us from becoming an independent country again. Blah, blah, blah.”
@Chris:
Taking into account the different choice of a state religion, an independent Texas might resemble Saudi Arabia in more ways than just resources.
Lurking Canadian
@Todd: Strictly speaking, Christianity is an Iron Age apocalyptic death cult that grew out of an older Bronze Age goatherd tradition.
Accuracy in offhand slurs is important.
Ben Franklin
@Chris:
I’ve heard the state is replete with Chinese-Tex-Mex restaurants.
nellcote
@RepubAnon:
unlike other red states, Texas is a “donor” state.
cckids
@scav: We have a similar, tho less dangerous, situation here in S. NV. There is a HUGE pig farm in N. Las Vegas; it has been there for close to 60 years. For decades it was just about the only thing for miles around. Then, in the boom years, the city grew up around it & now it is pretty much surrounded (with, of course, a school right by it). Now all the neighbors complain about the smell & try to get the operation fined or even closed down. SMH, people are stupid. The only ones I feel for are the kids in that school.
I grew up in rural NE, pig shit is not something you want to be smelling all day.
Ben Franklin
@cckids:
pig shit is not something you want to be smelling all day
Nevada is as bad as Texas for good bizness vibes. Don’t light your cigarette.
Gin & Tonic
@I am not a kook: Given how welcoming most rural Texans are to people from away, especially from liberal climes, I think the irony of having a socialist-born Senator is delicious, and worth pointing out. I’d say the same thing if Cruz had been born in Madison or Berkeley.
Roberta in MN
You also have to remember our military is embedded in TX. is a taker state. The whole State
Citizen Alan
@I am not a kook:
It might be relevant because Cruz is a jingoistic, America-First asshat who would be the first to question the patriotism of anyone on the other side who disagreed with him on a matter of public importance (and, in fact, DID question the patriotism of Chuck Hagel).
trollhattan
@GregB:
I vote for a ‘caning.
Davis X. Machina
It’s relevant to Cruz. Until things started exploding, the biggest story in the papers was the commingled saga of the immigration bill, and the GOP’s hunt for a minority front-man. Cruz’s got a piece, and a lot of ink, in both stories.
maya
@Ben Franklin: “Nevada is as bad as Texas for good bizness vibes. Don’t light your cigarette.”
Whoa! Wait! Marlboro Country.
Chris
@Roberta in MN:
Really? I thought it was one of the few red states that wasn’t a taker state – combination of the oil and the big cities.
If there’s enough military in Texas, I could see that turning it into a taker state (the Pentagon is why Virginia is one), but I didn’t think it was at that point.
sashal
@Anya:
sarcasm
Violet
@Citizen Alan: Yes. This.
@Anya: We are not going the route of the birthers. The comment on him being Canadian-born is a pointed one toward all the hypocritical birthers who think that if President Obama was born in Kenya to an American mother, he would be ineligible to be President, but Senator Cruz has an American mom so he’s totally eligible. Except, OOPS, he’s born in Canada. The comment is a reminder of their hypocrisy, as well as reminding everyone that if Cruz gets mentioned as a presidential candidate, there’s a big issue to deal with for him.
Roberta in MN
@nellcote: I don’t think so.
Matt
Why *shouldn’t* the tinfoil-hat-wearers, gawd-botherers and assorted peckerwoods vote for someone like Ted Cruz? They’re STILL going to get the federal money, and they get to keep whining about “moochers”, etc.
Until voting for GOP lunatics ACTUALLY HURTS constituents, they’re going to keep doing it. Democrats haven’t been doing themselves any favors wheeling-and-dealing with these assholes to prevent the catastrophic (and fully intended) consequences of conservative policy from coming to pass.
Petorado
It would be really nice to help out those folks in Texas, but then again Republicans keep telling us about the horrors of this existential debt crisis, so I guess our hands are tied.
Roberta in MN
@Chris: Yupper, I lived there for five years. I would have to look up the site that tells each state how much they collect in Federal taxes & how much the Feds give back. It was a eye opener.
Violet
@Roberta in MN: According to this, Texas is a donor state.
JGabriel
Steve:
I was just coming in to say the same thing. The good people of West, Texas, voted for both Ted Cruz and Bill Flores, who both voted against aid for those hit by Hurricane Sandy.
As someone who suffered in the dark and cold for a miserable week in Midtown Manhattan (and I was far from worst hit), I’m torn. Part of me wants to help the surviving victims of the West disaster, and part of me thinks they got what they voted for: a set of right-wing assholes who are so uncharitable that most New Yorkers welcome the opportunity to fuck over their elected representatives.
I am not a kook
@Gin & Tonic: So how is one supposed to tell the difference between an ignorant rightwing asshole making the argument that where a guy was born is relevant, to an earnest liberal making the same argument as “just a joke”? To me it sounds just the same – ignorant American nationalist crap.
Why validate the bad premise at all?
Remember, the failure mode of clever is “asshole” (google it for the treatise). I guess I’m beginning to see why some feminists and sexual minority advocates et al. say that playing the devil’s advocate is not OK in polite company.
I am not a kook
@Violet: I just don’t see the point in engaging the birfers on their own turf. Just call them idiots, ignore them and move on.
Do you also earnestly engage Larouchies et al, studying their arguments and using their internal logic to point out their inconsistencies?
Hint: these people are not persuadable by logic.
Common Sense
Yeah it’s cuz of Texas’ crazy zoning laws. That’s why the same damn thing happened in France.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AZF_%28factory%29
Elizabelle
@Anya:
I saw mistermix’s comment about “Canadian-born” Ted Cruz as an effort to reassure us that he can’t go national and be U.S. President.
That further research indicates he was born to a Delaware-born mother living in Calgary in 1970 very likely means he is eligible as a “natural born citizen.” Which I am most sorry to hear. He is an an asshole, and one with a mike.
I don’t go for immigrant-bashing either, but I don’t think that was mistermix’s intent.
Violet
@I am not a kook: As with most politics, it’s not the birthers you’re trying to engage. It’s the people more in the middle–the ones who might hear the birther crap and think, “Really? Obama wasn’t born here? Maybe he can’t be President.” So the comment about Cruz hits the same target–“Canadian-born Ted Cruz” reminds all those low-info, less politically involved people who might be persuaded by the “he’s a Real Murkin” argument”.
Keith G
@Violet: There is no issue. He is a natural born US citizen and is Constitutionally eligible to be president.
The only issue is his temperament, and that does not fit the profile of those who have been elected President for the last 40 years.
Edit: To address some up thread ignorance, Texas pays more than it gets back. It is an easy thing to check…you should try.
scav
@Common Sense: exactly, everyone here is asserting that zoning utterly prevents accidents instead of lessening consequences and odds. it’s just common sense.
Cermet
@scav: Sorry if I wasn’t clear but the officals running the State of TEXASSHOLES government was the cause of this disaster and THEY, the STATE government run by TEXASSHOLES, is who I blamed; NOT the poor victims – the fire fighters. These poor people did not know and unless they could really study the subject on their own and then ask the owners (who might not have answered, anyway), never would have realized the danger they were in.
Common Sense
@scav:
So 75% of the casualties were first responders on the scene when the factory exploded, but zoning would have lessened the consequences and odds? How, exactly?
Call me crazy, but I think adhering to safety regulations would have lessened the odds far more significantly.
I also love the snarky bullshit about how interesting it is that nursing homes and low income housing were near a factory — like that’s unique to Texas. Do they build low income housing in the Hamptons and Beverly Hills in other states?
scav
@Cermet: looks like we we’re working in tandom, though I never thought you were blaming the fire-fighters. I’d put more blame personally on the company though as they seem to have racked up a history of non-compliance and indifference to the dangers.
TAPX486
@Cermet: It looks like it might be bigger than lack of zoning. The company failed to notify the Dept. of Homeland Security that they had 270 tons of ammonium nitrate stored on site. That is a violation of federal law. The victims were murdered as surely as the victims in Boston but don’t expect to see anyone held accountable. Business is business after all
scav
@Common Sense: Zoning would have helped with the school and houses, because this could have happened during at another time, but no, of course, that’s not part of the discussion. No argument about the Regs though. Also about how I doubt there being malice in the location of the school or nursing home. More likely unawareness.
PeorgieTirebiter
These People, Mrs. Mix Romney?
I am not a kook
@Violet: That’s really weak. People dumb enough to fall for birfer arguments about Obama suddenly gain the cognitive skills for reasoning by analogy when pointed at Cruz? Uh-huh.
Keith G
@Common Sense: Indeed. In many northern cities, if the poor were not able to live near dangerous land uses (example), they would not be living in the city at all. Still, my friends here from other states get all holier than thou.
Having grown up near a very liberally run old northern city, I can attest that even now there are houses uncomfortably close to chemical processors and the like.
Texas needs to get better and it is a nationwide issue. There but for the FSM go many other neighborhoods.
PeorgieTirebiter
@Matt: By all means. Screw the 3.2 million Texans that voted for Obama, that’ll show us! We’ll all keep voting Democratic and sending money anyway, right?
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Lurking Canadian:
My niece who’s getting her PhD in late Bronze Age stuff like this would applaud your accuracy.
Oh and “Bronze Age Tribal Goatherd Death Cult” would make an excellent band name.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Lurking Canadian:
My niece who is getting her PhD in late Bronze Age stuff just like this would approve.
Oh and “Bronze Age Tribal Goatherd Death Cult” would make great death metal band name.
opie_jeanne
@cckids: Schools tend to be built on the cheapest land available. The pig farm made the land around it a bit cheaper. Seems to apply to new housing developments quite a bit.
Joel
Is a murder charge possible here?
aimai
@Feudalism Now!:
I like that. It should be the equivalent of a Senatorial signing statement.
aimai
@cmorenc:
I remember thinking the same thing at the time that the anthrax letters were being sent around the country–at the exact same time we were all falling to our knees and having hysteria about anthrax a study had just come out showing that the toxic clouds from our factories had so poisoned the NE fishing industry that there was too much mercury in bluefish for one to risk eating it. I thought “christ, the number of deaths and the economic fallout from our corporate terrorist class is far higher than the anthrax deaths but one gets a full court press and the other is basically ignored as just a cost of doing business.”
gene108
@Matt:
It already hurts their constituents.
Look at economic, education and health outcomes in Mississippi versus Massachusetts.
I doubt Mississippi voters will punish the Mississippi GOP for refusing Medicare expansion under Obamacare. GOP voters have made their decision to vote on social issues come what may in other parts of their lives.
JCR
I just made a donation to One Fund Boston (onefundboston.org) for the Marathon bombing victims, but I don’t think I could do the same for the Texas victims, even if it went directly to the people. At some point they need to learn to help themselves by voting in more responsible legislators and doing their part to support a more viable society. Until then, I’m going to save my money for those who are actively trying to prevent disasters like the plant explosion. I don’t want them to suffer, but I don’t want to enable self-destructive behavior, either.
dman
@BobbyK:
Because that’s what makes us better
ricky
I call for Obama and Holder to seek the death penalty so
“Teh base” can have a fresh stab wound in the back when they don’t.
kerFuFFler
I am not sure that the scope of the devastation here really calls for federal dollars. Texas should pay for a huge percentage of this mess from their own funds because it is not fair for them to avoid the botheration of safe zoning laws, and then pass the hat when the sh*t hits the fan. I wish the victims well, but Texas is a large state and should be able to afford helping out after a relatively small industrial accident. The difference in scale between something like this and a major hurricane or flood…..there just is no comparison. Part of the reason for federal aid in the wake of a disaster is that often a huge swath in a given state is similarly affected so they need outside help.
And doesn’t the company running this plant have insurance?
Athena2
Governor Goodhair is running ads in Illinois trying to lure bidnesses to his low-taxes and low-regulation state. He can go to h-e- double hockey sticks.
PurpleGirl
Haven’t read the whole thread yet, but…
Shouldn’t the fertilizer company and their insurer be picking up most of the tab for the recovery effort? They did have insurance, didn’t they?
scav
Interesting thing at the Guard, with regulation and other details. Safety rules limited for small fertilizer plants
Random J. Nerd
One simple solution – make the disaster relief bill a rider on the improved gun regulation bill. Everyone knows that its faster to attach something to an existing bill…
Bump on a Log
@Matt: I agree. Until there are visible consequences to voting assholes into office, it will continue to happen.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Rick Perry on his next trip to California to try and persuade businesses there to move to Texas:
“Our business-friendly environment has our businesses booming! Literally!”
Don SinFalta
I don’t plan to rethink my choice of Senator next time, I voted against Cruz last time. Thanks for the advice, though.
Morzer
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Explosive growth powers Texas’ ascent….
Another Halocene Human
@cmorenc: Monty Python Masonic Architect sketch.
Another Halocene Human
@Common Sense: Don’t be daft. France doesn’t believe in the notion of local control. Hence questionable decisions putting locals of places other than where the governmental elites live at risk. Like blowing up nukes off the coast of Tahiti. Nobody in Tahiti wanted that.
Since when is France some sort of model for good governance?
Jesus California
Texas will never secede, and no,they have no special right to do so; but it is a nice thought.
Common Sense
@Another Halocene Human:
Please let me know what society has ever refrained from putting the lives of the non elite at greater risk. I’ll wait.
someguy
We really ought to federalize fire departments. Locals, particularly volunteers, just can’t be counted on.
LanceThruster
Two Acts of Terror, Only One Investigationby DAVE LINDORFF