Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

It could be worse. Vance could have said “post-menopausal sows.” Waiting for that audiotape to surface.

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Every day Vance writes another chapter in the book called “Worst VP Pick Ever”.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

Second rate reporter says what?

Republicans don’t trust women.

In after Baud. Damn.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

If West Virginia and San Francisco had a love child.

A consequence of cucumbers

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

You are here: Home / Open Threads / A whole lot of rain to Texas

A whole lot of rain to Texas

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For everyone in Texas — be careful and be smart

Jeff Masters at Wunderground on how Harvey is building strength:

Conditions in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday morning were very favorable for intensification…. upper-level outflow to the north and east, which was ventilating the storm and allowing intensification to occur. Wind shear was light, 5 – 10 knots, which is favorable for intensification. The atmosphere had a high mid-level relative humidity of 70%, and the ocean was very warm, with sea surface temperatures (SSTs) of 30.5°C (87°F.) Warm waters extended deep into the ocean, providing a large reservoir of heat for the storm to draw upon….

The current favorable conditions for development will remain in place through Friday night, according to the 12Z Thursday run of the SHIPS model. Wind shear will remain light to moderate, and the atmosphere will be moist. SSTs will remain near 30°C (86°F), and warm waters will extend to considerable depth, with a total ocean heat content of 50 – 80 kilojoules per square centimeter. From Thursday night into Friday, Harvey will get an extra boost in energy as it passes over a warm-core eddy that broke off from the Loop Current. The oceanic heat content within the eddy exceeds 75 kilojoules per square centimeter, enough to support rapid intensification. However, the heat content of this eddy is not as high as the heat content available to Hurricane Katrina of 2005, when it moved over a similar warm-core eddy.

Be careful and open thread

Reader Interactions

133Comments

  5. 5.

    mai naem mobile

    @kd bart: he will blame it on Obama and the Deep State. Alex Jones will amplify it first and then Sean Hannity will have Good Job Brownie on to agree with him. Also, isn’t Jared in charge of emergency preparedness as well? Why is he in Israel?

  6. 6.

    westyny

    Terrifying. Got friends down there. And there could flash flooding (at least) all the way into central Texas. Gah.

  8. 8.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    Open thread:

    I was reading down below and Kay posted a GQ story about Dylan Roof; this section caught my eye:

    Dylann and Caleb’s elementary-school principal, Ted Wachter, administered Rosewood Elementary for three decades. Before that, he grew up in Queens, and he still has a strong New York accent even after 30 years in South Carolina. At his home in Columbia, he sat in a tall chair that made him look magisterial, but his gestures softened it all into the swagger of a liberal-arts professor. After he and his wife handed me a bowl of pistachios and a glass of white wine, Wachter, who talks fast and without shyness, asked me if I wanted to hear his theory on what happened to Dylann Roof. He started at the very beginning. Back when he heard on the radio about “this tragedy in Charleston” and the name Dylann Roof came up, Wachter thought to himself, Hell, I know that name.

    Dylann showed up at Rosewood at the age when social relationships become “class driven” and start to “self-sort.” Wachter, who has a background in sociology, watched in dismay as “those black-white relationships also started fraying. They just broke up, and I don’t think anyone wanted it to, but the social pressures are so strong.

    “And when Dylann came,” Wachter observed, “I remember him because he was quiet. I always remember thinking, ‘This is a nice, handsome-looking boy.’ I’ll show you his picture in the yearbook. Handsome, cute, but quiet, and he never was in my office for trouble. He was very quiet, and he wasn’t part of the in crowd, which was more…the kids of college-educated families. He wasn’t part of that. He was with the working-class kids.

    “To understand Dylann, you need to read The Hidden Injuries of Class,” Wachter said. What that book revealed was “how white working-class people in Boston, in South Boston, the more you interviewed them, what came out, especially after a few beers, is how inferior they felt to all the Harvard, Cambridge, bright, educated people.” In Wachter’s mind, Dylann wasn’t stupid, but he felt displaced. It was a case of class resentment. “And here’s the funny thing: If I had a dinner party right here with just white Ph.D.’s, it would not be socially acceptable for me to make any slur to an African-American person or a Hispanic person or a Muslim, but if I refer to poor whites as rednecks—”

    “Or crackers or white trash,” I interjected, saying the words he didn’t want to say.

    He grimaced but acknowledged them.

    “That would almost be socially acceptable to say those things. It just shows you how alienated they are. And these poor white working-class guys, they must realize this. See? So maybe Dylann’s family is a good example of downward social mobility. And Trump showed us this, that we underestimated how vulnerable and precarious self-esteem is for white, working-class people in this society. They not only see the white elites, but then they see…”

    “They see us, black people, coming from behind, eclipsing them.”

    Leaning forward in that tall chair, Wachter pointed at me for getting the answer right, and then he shrugged with his long arms out and asked the question he knew neither of us had an answer for.

    “And, they say, ‘What are these people doing up there? What has happened to me?’”

  10. 10.

    efgoldman

    @kd bart:

    Watch Trump screw up the response to Harvey.

    If by “screw up” you mean “ignore”, yeah that’s what I expect.

  11. 11.

    Immanentize

    That is heading straight for my in-laws in Richmond/Rosenberg…. Haven’t they weathered enough?

  12. 12.

    The Dangerman

    @kd bart:

    Watch Trump screw up the response to Harvey.

    I’d like to see Trump not screw up a response to anything. Just once, to show it can happen. I mean, he had a situation where neo-Nazi’s caused a ruckus and he fucked that up. That’s seriously fucking hard to do. Don’t even get me started at looking at the eclipse without glasses.

  14. 14.

    Wapiti

    My wife and I were living in Houston when a tropical storm came thru. We were clueless, and went out to eat – got a table no problem. There was 6-8 of water coming through the parking lot by the time we finished. A serious shitload of water on top of a city with tenuous drainage. (We ended up walking home, sometimes through hip deep water. God protects fools and clowns, they say. Neither of us got sucked up against a storm sewer grate or anything, but it does happen.) Go to high ground early and wait it out.

  15. 15.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    Whoever’s living on the Texas coast in the path of that thing reading this, be careful.

  18. 18.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @The Dangerman:
    We’ll probably never know if his vision was affected by it. Trump would never admit it.

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:

    To add on:

    Roof even wore shoes to federal court decorated with neo-Nazi codes and Klan runes. He thought himself part of a secret fight for the future, in which, Roof wrote, he imagined he would one day be pardoned by a sympathetic president.

    He might not be wrong.

  20. 20.

    TenguPhule

    @The Dangerman:

    I’d like to see Trump not screw up a response to anything. Just once, to show it can happen.

    The good news, we at least have a probably competent head of FEMA this time (Qualifier because he was nominated by Trump).

    The bad news, Trump is a lazy ass bastard who already denied disaster relief to Pennsylvania and North Carolina.

    But maybe Trump won’t do a Bush and pull a Katrina.

    Maybe.

  23. 23.

    Kay

    Oh, look! Wall Street doesn’t care about the debt anymore!

    It was only about five years ago that powerful people in finance loved talking about the horrendous consequences for the U.S. if it didn’t get its finances under control. They warned that the federal debt—and the interest payments—could eventually get high enough to drag down the economy, burden future generations, and even threaten national security. Chief executive officers of five of the biggest U.S. banks joined a campaign called Fix the Debt, signing on with hedge fund billionaires, asset managers, and private equity executives, as well as former lawmakers and others.

    The conversation on Wall Street changed after November’s election. Some of the same people who were anxious about the debt sounded delighted by Donald Trump’s plan to cut taxes for corporations and high earners, trumpeting it as a way to fuel growth. Never mind that estimates from the conservative-leaning Tax Foundation showed Trump’s campaign plan could reduce federal revenue by $3.9 trillion over 10 years. Case in point: Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO Lloyd Blankfein, a Fix the Debt supporter who in 2012 told CNBC he’d be for higher taxes if they helped mend the fiscal gap. After the election, Blankfein told colleagues in a companywide voicemail that Trump’s proposals, including tax reform, “will be good for growth and, therefore, will be good for our clients and for our firm.”

    One of the lobbying groups actually ran ads here during that propaganda campaign- ominous music and shots of a school bus- the debt was strangling our economy!

    Such frauds. They’ll crank up the lie machine the moment the next Democrat wins. They just unplugged it for now.

  24. 24.

    Immanentize

    @efgoldman: It is just going to be water — no high winds or anything and they are on high enough ground that the only issue is whether the slough will flood on the other side of the road. They look like they might be on the dirty side of it all, which means more rain…. But the only thing they fret about is the whole thing stalling over them which might make it hard to get around for a couple of days.

  28. 28.

    Yarrow

    For everyone in Texas — be careful

    What is this? I was reliably told last night here on this very blog that the proper response to people who might be affected by the storm and who might need assistance after it passes is “fuckem.” Texas didn’t vote for Hillary and the Democratic party in Texas is so poor it aspires to be moribund and Texas isn’t as purple as North Carolina so they aren’t trying hard enough so fuckem.

    @Immanentize:

    It is just going to be water — no high winds or anything

    Richmond/Rosenberg will experience tropical storm force winds. If the track shifts further east (north along the coast) then the’ll get more of an impact. Hurricanes in the Gulf often shift east right before landfall due to the curvature of the coastline. They need to be prepared for stronger winds.

  29. 29.

    trollhattan

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
    Many compelling points there.

    I’m proud of my kid–entering her sophomore year–who in addition to taking her grueling college prep track classes has joined a couple student organizations and also the track team, giving her social interactions with numerous kids she’d never encounter in the classroom. It grounds her in ways the school can’t “engineer,” although I’ll soon weary of her admonitions to “check my privilege.”

  30. 30.

    Kay

    They cannot leave Social Security alone. There is ONE thing they can’t get their greedy paws on and it literally keeps them up at night, trying to come up with some way to distribute it upwards:

    “Passing tax reform becomes even more critical,” because it’s now a matter of political survival, says Judd Gregg, a veteran of both Wall Street and Washington who became co-chairman of Fix the Debt in 2012. He was a Republican senator from New Hampshire before he advised Goldman Sachs and led the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association in 2013. Gregg says it wouldn’t be so terrible if slashing taxes added $1 trillion or $2 trillion to the $20 trillion the U.S. already owes. The way he sees it, there should still be attention paid to the fiscal health of the U.S., “but concern in my opinion should be focused on entitlement reform.” Entitlement programs such as Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security take up a large and growing slice of federal spending. Tackling them to address the debt would mean cutting future spending on benefits for the old and poor.

    They want it all. Everything. God forbid someone should get 1300.00 a month when they are too old to work. They have to take that too.

  31. 31.

    TenguPhule

    @Yarrow:

    I was reliably told last night here on this very blog that the proper response to people who might be affected by the storm and who might need assistance after it passes is “fuckem.” Texas didn’t vote for Hillary and the Democratic party in Texas is so poor it aspires to be moribund and Texas isn’t as purple as North Carolina so they aren’t trying hard enough so fuckem.

    We’re not all efgoldman, Yarrow. Some of us are on your side.

  32. 32.

    TenguPhule

    @Kay:

    They cannot leave Social Security alone. There is ONE thing they can’t get their greedy paws on and it literally keeps them up at night, trying to come up with some way to distribute it upwards:

    I’d like to think they’re not suicidal enough to try that right now.

  34. 34.

    TenguPhule

    @Major Major Major Major:

    “Don’t live near the ocean.” “Don’t live on a fault line.” “Don’t live in the desert.” “Don’t live on a flood plain.”

    Some people, I swear.

    Obviously the only proper place to live is in orbital habitats far from earthly natural disasters.

  35. 35.

    efgoldman

    @Geoduck:

    it appears that NOAA is still limping along with an acting head.

    Didn’t Mulvaney’s first “budget” try to zero it out in favor of (commercial) Accuweather?

  37. 37.

    The Moar You Know

    “And, they say, ‘What are these people doing up there? What has happened to me?’”

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: As a cousin of mine once said “If I’m not better than a nigger, then who am I better than? Nobody!”

    I can’t imagine walking around obsessing about who is better than who, but then again I’m white, professional, a former entertainer and have a degree, so I swim in that privilege. He was born to my white trash aunt and is now a multiple-strike violent felon. Currently out. Hopefully not for long (he does not know where I live, isn’t going to, and is a true menace to society at this point).

  38. 38.

    TenguPhule

    @Geoduck:

    It’s good that FEMA has someone who may actually be qualified, but it appears that NOAA is still limping along with an acting head.

    Yeah. So getting people warnings ahead of time to prepare for the disasters is going to suffer, with all of the associated costs that brings.

    But Climate change is the devil and so the holy Republican crusade against science must march on!

  40. 40.

    Jay S

    @Kay:

    Such frauds. They’ll crank up the lie machine the moment the next Democrat wins. They just unplugged it for now

    That lie machine is never unplugged. It’s just switched from deficits disasterous to tax cuts good for the economy mode.

  41. 41.

    The Moar You Know

    Didn’t Mulvaney’s first “budget” try to zero it out in favor of (commercial) Accuweather?

    @efgoldman: Bush the Dumber tried that too. When Accuweather starts launching their own satellites then maybe we can discuss it.

    I guess Accuweather, which sucks BTW, is a major GOP contributor.

  43. 43.

    Yarrow

    @TenguPhule: Precious few, apparently. Not many stepped in to say that, hey, people who are facing a natural disaster might be worthy of helping, even if some of them did vote for Trump. There are a whole lot of others who voted for Hillary who may also be affected, but you know, whatever. Fuckem.

  44. 44.

    Kay

    @TenguPhule:

    I think people should respond like they own Social Security- “are you crazy? Get away from that money. It’s not yours”

    Treat it as an outlandish affront – like they’re trying to wrestle your purse away from you in a dark alley.

  45. 45.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    They cannot leave Social Security alone. There is ONE thing they can’t get their greedy paws on and it literally keeps them up at night, trying to come up with some way to distribute it upwards:

    Keep on reminding us, Kay.

    Keep on telling it.

  47. 47.

    efgoldman

    @ThresherK:

    Fck Judd (Moderate Republican) Gregg.

    Once upon a time, he was considered hard core RWNJ. He hasn’t changed, but as we know, the party has become ridiculous.

  48. 48.

    Kay

    @Jay S:

    Repatriation! Which (surprise!) is a big scam they’ve been trying to pull off for years:

    Republican leaders still seem far from agreement on some fundamental questions about tax reform, but they appear to have all rallied around a truly terrible idea for economic policy. According to reporting from Nancy Cook at Politico, negotiators from the Trump administration and the congressional GOP have reached agreement on a plan to push for a discredited tax gimmick that will produce windfall financial gains for wealthy shareholders while doing almost basically nothing to help the economy.

    “Among the decisions that the White House, Treasury and congressional leaders have settled on,” Cook writes, “is that any tax proposal will require U.S. companies to bring back earnings from overseas at a one-time low tax rate, a favorite proposal of the business community known as repatriation.”

    “Repatriations did not lead to an increase in domestic investment, employment or R&D — even for the firms that lobbied for the tax holiday stating these intentions,” they write. “Instead, a $1 increase in repatriations was associated with an increase of almost $1 in payouts to shareholders.” A 2011 Congressional Research Service analysis reached the same conclusion, as did a 2014 investigation by the Senate’s Government Affairs Committee.

    Trump’s such a dope they must be thrilled. They could tell him anything. He thinks “clean coal” is laundered.

  49. 49.

    Immanentize

    @Yarrow: Thanks. I’ll pass it along. But this is by no means their first rodeo.

    ETA About the demographics and voting patterns of the place likely to get hit the hardest — Fort Bend County went for Hillary.

  52. 52.

    Immanentize

    @efgoldman: Trying to get rid of the National Weather Service in favor of privatization — that was Santorum’s big push about 10 years ago.

  53. 53.

    TenguPhule

    @Kay:

    I think people should respond like they own Social Security- “are you crazy? Get away from that money. It’s not yours”

    That’s the AARP’s standard strategy whenever the mouth breathers start talking about “reform”,

    Tends to work.

    And I’d like to think even stupid Republicans would realize that fucking with SS and Medicare to cut benefits is something that people who benefit from it would literally kill them over. Not death threats, but cut their throats in the middle of the night deader then dead. A lot of lives depend on the safety net.

  54. 54.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @schrodingers_cat:
    Oh they’re fine. Thanks for asking! Looking back, it was silly to think a split second was going to make a difference. I wasn’t staring at the eclipse for like 20 seconds like that one guy did 50 years ago.

  55. 55.

    TenguPhule

    @Kay:

    “is that any tax proposal will require U.S. companies to bring back earnings from overseas at a one-time low tax rate, a favorite proposal of the business community known as repatriation.”

    We’ve had them before, it NEVER WORKS. Companies simply laugh all the way to the bank.

  57. 57.

    Yarrow

    @Immanentize: They’re probably prepared, but as you said, they’ve been through so much (as have you) and this is tough on top of that. They may not be as prepared this time or quite as on top of things given everything. Do they have any neighbors who might be able to help if necessary?

    I’m an avid hurricane watcher and the professional meteorologists on the hurricane board I frequent have been talking about Harvey moving up the coast and possibly stalling just offshore or just onshore. Harvey has been a very difficult storm to forecast all along. The “cone” that the NHC is showing is consensus but there is quite a bit of data showing some conflicting things, even at this late date.

    I saw a clip of New Orleans preparing and that’s not a bad idea because if the track moves further up the coast (as it has since last night) New Orleans may experience some of it. Also, if stalls then returns to the Gulf, Louisiana could be the second landfall.

    It’s been a really tough storm to forecast. Still challenging even now.

  58. 58.

    Mike J

    On Tuesday, President Donald Trump signed a new order that rescinded an Obama-era rule requiring federally-funded infrastructure to follow stricter building standards aimed at reducing flood-related damages. The Obama order also required that federally-funded infrastructure built along the coastline take into account future projections for sea-level rise.

  59. 59.

    WaterGirl

    @Yarrow: You made your point in that thread, and then the back-and-forth seemed to go on and on and on, and I didn’t want to get caught up in that. Maybe others felt the same. You made your point, and I wondered why you didn’t let it go.

  62. 62.

    Yarrow

    @Immanentize: Yep. As did Harris (Houston). A lot of south Texas did too. Yesterday all that was expected to receive big floods. Path has shifted north, so they’re probably out of it.

    Some of the red counties on the coast have more cows than people. Kenedy county has a population of 407. That would be an ideal place for it to hit because livestock could be trailered to safety. Alas, path has moved north.

  63. 63.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @The Moar You Know:
    My take, and so is basically the author of that piece, is that Roof was a loser goon who didn’t have to do the things he did. It was noted that while he may have suffered from several mental illnesses and was autistic (as diagnosed by a court psychologist) there were many people who have similar problems, yet they don’t go out and kill people.

  65. 65.

    Immanentize

    @Yarrow: If they were on their own, I would be much more worried, but my brother-in-law lives with them — and belongs to a great small business network that will help each other however they can as needed. And their neighborhood is solid. If I had to guess, I suspect they will be helping others as much as they will be getting help….

  66. 66.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @Kay:
    What are you complaining about? Just buy up a few thousand shares of a Fortune 500 company and you too can bask in the money shower

  67. 67.

    StringOnAStick

    @The Moar You Know: xI work with a single mom who had a fit when her 17yo son posted “at least I’m white” on FB this summer. She’s politically uninvolved and her son is the classic overweight gamer who went to an alternative high school after flunking out of regular school. He’s basically pissed that all his video game efforts didn’t land him a high paying job killing dragons or whatever and so physically unfit that he’d never risk the hard work of joining the military. He’s going to cling to his whiteness since it’s all he’s got and isn’t willing to work for anything else. His mom isn’t racist and feels very strongly about that; I figure her son picked it up from who he hung with in school and less optimal gaming groups. He thought he could just drop into a trade apprenticeship position in this booming city but poor grades and Hus attitude led to no one accepting him except Target. Now he’s even more resentful. Unfortunately I see an alt right future for him.

  68. 68.

    germy

    @M31:

    and by “shared” they mean “sold to advertisers”

    Oh yes. These people don’t “share” anything. Everything is tied to a buck with them.

  69. 69.

    Mike J

    @TenguPhule: P&C

    There is an “active shooter situation” in a popular tourist and commercial area of downtown Charleston, according to police spokesman Charles Francis. King Street is currently closed between Calhoun and Morris Streets.

    Employees working in the area near Virginia’s On King, a Southern cuisine restaurant, said they were on lockdown as authorities swarmed the area. Several people have said the active shooter situation appears to have started within Virginia’s.

    “This was not an act of terrorism,” said Mayor John Tecklenburg. “This was not a hate crime. This was a disgruntled employee.”

  71. 71.

    Matt McIrvin

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: For what it’s worth, Trump’s vision is almost certainly not permanently damaged. There was video of that whole incident, and Trump only looked at the sun for about a second. If it were that easy we’d have people accidentally blinding themselves under non-eclipse conditions all the time. To get permanent damage you really need to stare for significantly longer than that, longer than anyone would unless they were unusually motivated, or enabled by the lesser pain that comes from looking during an eclipse–10 or 20 seconds would be pretty dangerous.

    It’s the role-model aspect that’s worrisome–people coming away thinking the whole danger of staring at an eclipse is a myth because there’s that still picture of Trump being a macho man. Also, of course, it’s dumb in that in one second of looking at the sun he probably couldn’t have made anything out anyway.

  72. 72.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kay: “Fix the Debt”… If I had bet the Powerball jackpot winner who Judd Gregg’s co-chair is, i would be half a billion richer right now, but I don’t know if they’d take the bet so I googled

    Co-Founders
    Erskine Bowles, Co-Chair, National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform
    Sen. Alan Simpson, Co-Chair, National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform

    Co-Chairs
    Gov. Ed Rendell, former Governor, Pennsylvania
    Sen. Judd Gregg, former U.S. Senator, New Hampshire

  75. 75.

    Keith P.

    This hurricane is making me sick already. I *just* had 6 inches of rain last week, and now they’re talking about 15 inches for this one. Not to mention my house flooded last year.

  76. 76.

    Mike J

    @Kay:

    “Instead, a $1 increase in repatriations was associated with an increase of almost $1 in payouts to shareholders.”

    American shareholders then paid taxes on dividends. While the money was “resting” overseas, there was no tax paid on it.

    I’m all for reducing the corporate rate and increasing the rate on dividends. I think there’s a revenue positive balance that will encourage companies to leave their cash in the US where they either pass it through to shareholders or invest it in American communities. Of course many of my progressive betters just hear “cut corporate taxes”

  78. 78.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Miss Bianca: caught the tail-end of a press conference and they were saying disgruntled, recently fired employee. I hope that holds
    ETA : sick fucking world that we have to hope people like trump can’t exploit something like this

  79. 79.

    Yarrow

    @WaterGirl: I was surprised at no acknowledgement that perhaps the sweeping with a broad brush of everyone in a state is not accurate, so provided information to explain why in this case it was particularly inaccurate. I kept thinking maybe there would be support for what I was saying, but it didn’t go that way.

    I find it appalling that anyone thinks that people who are in facing a massive natural disaster should be cast aside because they happen to live in a state that voted for Trump, even if many of those affected did not. Well, now I know what people think.

  80. 80.

    TenguPhule

    One reason Treasury officials are worried about the late September deadline is because they have a payment scheduled for military pensions that would exceed $70 billion. As of late last week, Treasury had only $84 billion in its cash reserves. That figures rises and falls based on daily tax collection and spending requirements, but it has drawn down steadily for months. When Trump was sworn into office, Treasury had more than $350 billion in cash reserves.

    Yet another reason why Texas may have to wait awhile for that disaster relief funding.

    Add in a few more states hit by Hurricanes or floods, fires, earthquakes or tornadoes and there is no safety margin in the budget.

  81. 81.

    TenguPhule

    @Yarrow:

    I kept thinking maybe there would be support for what I was saying, but it didn’t go that way.

    In fairness to most of the regulars, it was late and they weren’t here.

    For what its worth, I agreed with you and said so.

  82. 82.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: I grew up in a working class neighborhood.

    These very same poor injured white working class males spent high school getting stoned and mocking nerds like me for not being cool like them and instead wasting my time on useless and boring book stuff. If it burns these guys they are doing a real life Al Bundy and working some crappy, humiliating job because cutting class and smoking dope didn’t prep them for the information age; GOOD.

    Seriously, F-them up the south end, these bullying, useless, bigoted, close minded, drug abusing twats.

  83. 83.

    StringOnAStick

    @Yarrow: I often use a Kindle, which is a total PITA to comment on and that limits how much I comment as a result. It doesn’t mean I agree or disagree with the bloggy conversation. It also keeps me from posting ill advised stuff when I’m out of sorts; I consider that a positive feature but I get frustrated trying g to post anything long or nuanced because one fingered typing sucks.

  84. 84.

    WaterGirl

    @Yarrow:

    Well, now I know what people think.

    I really don’t think you do.

    I find it appalling that anyone thinks that people who are in facing a massive natural disaster should be cast aside because they happen to live in a state that voted for Trump, even if many of those affected did not.

    I certainly don’t think that, and I didn’t speak up – you had already made the point, which was a good one, and I had no interest in being part of a thread that was beating a dead horse. At some point I just skipped over the rest of the back-and-forth.

    Sometimes less is more. My two cents.

  86. 86.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Yarrow: I saw some of that, I thought it was a debate about the state of the TX Dem party and I don’t know anything about it.

    Also, I like to save my fight for Wiltermites.

  87. 87.

    Kay

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    My disdain for Ed Rendell is well known :)

    I cannot stand him. I think he should be forced to retire as a pundit. He’s ridden that “former governor” train long enough.

    There should be a limit to what I have to endure.

  88. 88.

    Soprano2

    It’s weird to have a local story come up as the first story in my morning WaPo e-mail today. It’s the story about the 16-year-old girl who was allegedly murdered by her birth mother on a hog farm in rural Ozark County. It’s such a tragic story. I hate it that these kind of things are the only time we make the news.

  89. 89.

    james parente

    I am a survivor of Superstorm Sandy. My heart goes out to the people of Texas who have to deal with this storm.
    However, the real damage will come from the “recovery” effort.
    There will be many scams. Flood insurance is one of them. Federal “recovery” grants are another.
    Just wait until these people experience “duplication of benefits”.
    Between PTSD and “recovery efforts, I lost everything, including my life savings.
    Their hurt is just beginning.

  91. 91.

    Kay

    @Amir Khalid:

    Gillinbrand says she’s introducing legislation to stop it, which is good. I like her. Now I want to run another woman just to fuck with them :)

  92. 92.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kay: I guess as HUD secretary or Ambassador to Ireland or whatever, he would’ve been limited in the damage he could’ve done, but Obama’s apparent distaste for him seems justified, even if it did generate some truly obnoxious and bitter– and laughable to people who weren’t impressed by his resume and regular guy affect– trolling over the last eight years

  94. 94.

    Yarrow

    @TenguPhule: My first reply was at 11:40 p.m. Eastern Time and there were quite a few regulars still active in the thread for another hour or longer. But now I know what people think. I just didn’t want to believe it. And it looks like the rest thought I should have let it go. I’ll do that. As has been my life for the last nineteen months, I wanted to be wrong about what I was seeing. I was not. It’s better to know the truth.

  95. 95.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @james parente:

    I was not far from Montego Bay when Sandy hit Jamaica.

    That sucked serious ass. Still, we only lost power two hours and cell AND data coverage never went down.

  96. 96.

    CaseyL

    @Major Major Major Major: And tornadoes, don’t forget tornadoes.

    So: Don’t live anywhere the ground moves, water falls, or winds blow. Got it.

    @TenguPhule:

    Obviously the only proper place to live is in orbital habitats far from earthly natural disasters.

    Sounds good to me! All we’d have to worry about are non-earthly natural disasters, like radiation, asteroids and meteors. Also hull ruptures, massive insanity, and rationing of things like breathable air. (“Residents of Habitat Level A are kindly directed to limit inhalations to the hours of 00:00-12:00. Residents of Habitat Level B are kindly directed to limit inhalations to the hours of 13:00-24:00.”)

  97. 97.

    efgoldman

    @germy:

    Wait… it gets better

    Not only that. Where does Accuweather get their date (FOR FREE!)? Do they have their own satellites and weather balloons? Their own hurricane hunter planes?
    Why, NO (he said). They get it all from NOAA.

  98. 98.

    Sloane Ranger

    There was a guy on the TV from the Houston area just now. He was more worried about a storm surge. He said that refineries in the area process the vast majority of fuel used in the US and if they get overwhelmed with 2 feet of water or more they will need to be closed for up to 36 months with disastrous results to the US economy.

    He said Houston authorities had tried to work with the State to harden the facilities but they weren’t having any.

    Climate change? La la la la, can’t hear you!

  99. 99.

    Kay

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Democrats from Pennsylvania told me the reason he backed Hillary in’08 was his wife was “promised” a SCOTUS seat.

    I don’t think they’re married anymore so maybe that wasn’t so genius after all.

    They called him “Fast Eddy”, contempteously.

    OBVIOUSLY I was all ears – “how bad IS he? tell me more – anything bad” :)

  100. 100.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kay: Democrats from Pennsylvania told me the reason he backed Hillary in’08 was his wife was “promised” a SCOTUS seat.

    I don’t think they’re married anymore so maybe that wasn’t so genius after all.

    Good lord, that’s worse than I thought. I one saw him deliver a two minute speech on the hierarchy of forms of address for retired (retired!) officials (“Secretary” outranks “Governor”, for when you next send out invitations to cocktail reception or garden party or fundraiser), so I figured it was all about him.

  101. 101.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    Gillinbrand says she’s introducing legislation to stop it, which is good. I like her. Now I want to run another woman just to fuck with them :)

    She says she’s not running in 2020.
    I think that she is.
    I hope that she is.

  104. 104.

    Matt McIrvin

    @CaseyL: I’ve always thought it amusing that so many libertarians dream of emigrating to a space colony, a place where a pretty regimented existence with many, many rules would probably be necessary in order to not die and take everyone else with you.

  105. 105.

    catclub

    A government shutdown would be a disaster for Republicans. And they might not be able to stop it.
    CNN 18m ago

    Somehow when Ryan and McConnell are saying that a shutdown won’t happen, this becomes almost inevitable.

  107. 107.

    But her emails!!!

    @Mike J:

    American shareholders then paid taxes on dividends. While the money was “resting” overseas, there was no tax paid on it.

    I’m all for reducing the corporate rate and increasing the rate on dividends. I think there’s a revenue positive balance that will encourage companies to leave their cash in the US where they either pass it through to shareholders or invest it in American communities. Of course many of my progressive betters just hear “cut corporate taxes”

    I’m actually in favor of reducing income tax for corporations and taxing shareholder dividends and long-term capital gains at regular income levels with an additional penalty on short term capital gains. In combination with that, I’d like to see an additional tax bracket for those making over 1 million a year to help nudge companies in the direction of investment vs. passing out buckets of cash to shareholders.

    If you believe that Republicans would be interested in what I outlined above, I have an exotic post it note on my desk that I would gladly part with for a special limited time offer of 7.734 Million Euros.

  108. 108.

    TenguPhule

    @But her emails!!!:

    American shareholders then paid taxes on dividends.

    At a greatly reduced rate. So the effect is compounded.

    Company gets a tax break, dividend holders get a tax break.

    government gets screwed.

  109. 109.

    sherparick

    @TenguPhule: They hate, just hate Social Security and Medicare. Unless you are born rich, or make yourself rich, you need to work until you die. If you get to sick to work, die quickly. http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/12/19/the_powers_that_be_hate_social_security_here_s_why.html

    By the way, if read Yglesias article (written in his contrarian phase while working at Slate), you see that Judd Gregg’s statement follows the logic (cut taxes on the “Job Creators” and cut the benefits of the old moochers, will spur the economy. l

  110. 110.

    catclub

    @But her emails!!!:

    I’d like to see an additional tax bracket for those making over 1 million a year to help nudge companies in the direction of investment

    why stop there. add 1% to the rate at $1M annual income, $5M, $10M, $20M, $20M, $80M, etc.

    There is no reason that someone with income of $20M/yr should get the same rate as someone with income $500k/yr.
    That would be like applying the same rate to someone with income of $2k and $80k.

    Their accountants can deal with the incredible complexity of multiple tax rates.

  111. 111.

    WaterGirl

    @Yarrow: Please don’t make assumptions about what people are thinking. There are lots of reasons not to engage in a back-and-forth in a late night thread, and most of them have nothing to do with whose position one agrees with. Please don’t make assumptions about what people think about this issue. This is obviously a really important issue for you, but please don’t paint with too broad a brush here.

    Sometimes people vent, it’s a good way to blow off steam. I feel quite certain that pretty close to zero regulars here want good people in Texas to be harmed because they live is a red state.

  112. 112.

    d58826

    I wonder how quickly all of those ‘we ain’t paying for no Hurricane Sandy relief’ Texans show up at the Treasury with their hands out?

    Hey i know – we pay for the wall and get Mexico to pay for the hurricane

    Hmm there seems to have been a late night debate about disaster relief for Texas. Just to be perfectly clear they should get the aid. I just get angry at the hypocrisy

  113. 113.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Yarrow:
    First, (((hugs))) and a wish for safety for you and all in the storm’s path.

    Respectfully, I’d like to suggest that you don’t know what “people” (presumably balloon-juicers) think. I’ve learned the hard way that universalizing on an emotional topic is often unwise and inaccurate. I missed last night’s conversation, but it’s clear that you feel upset about what some folks said and others left unsaid.

    It sounds like someone(s) made insensitive comments about impending storms/rescue/damage in Texas. While I’m not a fan of Texas politics, I and probably 99.9% of commenters would not wish anyone real harm. Current politics have so many of us on edge and more than one commenter has made regrettable remarks at one point or another. At the same time, I’ve also seen incredible kindness displayed here. We’re a mixed bag. I’m sorry for your distress and hope we can extend to one another a little grace and compassion during these stressful times.

    Edited.

  114. 114.

    Caphilldcne

    @Amir Khalid: as a gay former Air Force officer (who served pre-don’t ask, don’t tell when being gay was a thought crime), my utter level of fury at this administration for their treatment of our trans brothers and sisters is utterly unbound. I curse the ground upon which the people who voted for these ogres walk and I frankly hope that they all come to a terrible end. May they all be raptures because I want nothing to do with them or this cretinous godbaby they worship. The 2018 elections cannot get here fast enough.

  115. 115.

    NoraLenderbee

    @Yarrow: When people talk about tumbrels and guillotines for politicians they don’t like, they are not actually calling for their deaths by execution. When someone says, “Fuck texas, let it drown,” they are not actually wishing actual suffering and death on millions of their fellow humans. FFS.

  116. 116.

    Davebo

    I’m torn between staying here in Houston or going to my parents place for the storm. They are 79 and 77 and though they’ve been through a lot of these I worry about them.

    At the same time this will be the first hurricane for my girlfriend though I have no doubt she can take care of herself.

    I’ll make a decision tomorrow.

  117. 117.

    texasboyshaun

    Long-time lurker, rare commenter. I’m from Houston and live in Pasadena now about 2 miles from all those lovely refineries and chemical plants. I lived in Connecticut for Irene and Sandy, plus Allison, Rita, and Ike here. Being a Texas Democrat is hard enough, but I’m also gay, lower-income, and I have a disabled sister who depends on me a great deal. So yeah, Texas ain’t an easy place to live. But it’s home and it’s where I have to be right now. I work hard with my (mostly) Latino Episcopal church to serve our neighbors, most of whom are unbelievably poor and some are undocumented. It’s a free country and people can say what they want. But is it asking too much for some of y’all to not say “fuck you” to 28 million Texans, just because a majority of our voters voted for Orange Massengill and the GOP? We’ve done a lot of hard work here like successfully blocking the bathroom bill, getting Annise Parker elected as the first lesbian mayor of a Top 10 city, and fighting the voter ID laws. And can we also maybe realize that a lot of Christians aren’t racist homophobes? Just because liberal Christians aren’t not the loudest voices doesn’t mean we aren’t fighting too. Hopefully this won’t get me banned or flamed, but there’s my two cents. And now, back to prepping for another hurricane.

  118. 118.

    eclare

    @TenguPhule: I agree, I live in a red state, and I do my part every two years, but I’m from here, my elderly parents live here, and moving is not an option. I’d like to think if a big one hit (Memphis is close to the New Madrid fault) people wouldn’t ask who I voted for before handing out bottled water. I wouldn’t ask.

  119. 119.

    TenguPhule

    @NoraLenderbee:

    When people talk about tumbrels and guillotines for politicians they don’t like, they are not actually calling for their deaths by execution.

    Well, about that.

  122. 122.

    Spikester

    @The Dangerman:

    @kd bart:

    Watch Trump screw up the response to Harvey.

    I’d like to see Trump not screw up a response to anything. Just once, to show it can happen. I mean, he had a situation where neo-Nazi’s caused a ruckus and he fucked that up. That’s seriously fucking hard to do. Don’t even get me started at looking at the eclipse without glasses.

    Reminds me of my grandfather’s exasperation at my complete ineptitude with tools in my youth. When he’d finally reached his limit, he swore, “Son, you could fuck up an anvil with a rubber mallet.”

  124. 124.

    eclare

    @O. Felix Culpa: Hey, didn’t know that! My license became old enough to have a beer a couple of years ago! And I, like you, probably, took the exam over 2 1/2 days straight with no computer.

    //Kids these days

  125. 125.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @eclare:

    And I, like you, probably, took the exam over 2 1/2 days straight with no computer.

    Yup. Me and a couple thousand of my closest friends on the top floor of the Merchandise Mart. Most were young’uns trying to get grandfathered in before the course hours requirement increased. Me, I was aiming to pass the first time around. Wasn’t going to sit through that torture twice!

  126. 126.

    Raoul

    Late to this thread, but I have to wonder how this is gonna go down. Note, I have family and friends in the Houston area, as well as Austin so I don’t want a big disaster. That said, then this: If a Cat 3 or Cat 4 slams the Texas coast (a storm for sure will, the if is the strength), it will be a major test of the Trump Admin, I think.

    He’s been taking credit for all sorts of things (VA changes, economy, busshit about improving the Army, etc). He now owns the admin, so if FEMA falls apart and there is chaos for days or weeks, he can try to blame Obama, but we all need to tell him what a f*kup he is and that Obama left in January, it’s late August, there are no ‘backsies’ that get him out of federal disaster aid jacknobbery.

    That’s all I need to say for now. Just putting down a marker, if you will, for the first chance at Trump’s Katrina.

    eta: I’m very sympathetic to texasboyshaun. I lived in TX for 14 years, and liberals have done some good stuff over the years. Heck, Ann Richards was gov not that long ago. Good luck with the storm. I hope it isn’t a catastrophe. But if it is, it’ll be a majority-Red state that gets to see what Trump is incapable of.

  127. 127.

    eclare

    @O. Felix Culpa: Oh, I sat through it three or four times before it was all done. But I got grandfathered in also, didn’t have the funds or desire for a master’s when a bachelor’s would do. Good for you if you passed the first time, impressive!

  128. 128.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @eclare: In the end, passing is passing. No easy feat whether the first or the third time. Congrats to you as well!

  131. 131.

    Spaniel

    The severity of damage to San Antonio will depend if the storm hits east of Corpus Christi or at/west of Corpus Christi. San Antonio is going to flood and it could be bad.

    If Trump doesn’t screw it up, do not count Governor Abbott from fumbling the ball himself.

  132. 132.

    Chad

    Im sure we will soon be regaled with tales of plucky texans spurning the outstretched FEMA hands of governmental oppression in favor of liberty and personal freedom. /eyeroll

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