Oy vey…
More Details pic.twitter.com/jyPGRqiIy3
— David Begnaud (@DavidBegnaud) September 12, 2018
Here it is https://t.co/cRdLP5mHuo
— David Begnaud (@DavidBegnaud) September 12, 2018
If you haven’t gotten out: LEAVE NOW!!!!
Stay safe!
Open thread.
* Just as a bit of a postscript, but this is classic waste, fraud, and abuse. People should be terminated and some of them should be going to jail over this. I spent a fair amount of time monitoring social media and providing information to military colleagues, including former students, involved in the response to link them up with people well outside the cities that needed water and food and other necessities. FEMA’s malfeasance here completely undercut everything trying to be accomplished by the Joint, Interagency response. That FEMA screwed up this badly making the response that much worse is disgusting.
Mary G
In the very small corner of the right wing mediaplex I can stomach reading, stories about food rotting in warehouses in Puerto Rico have been getting more and more play, with the interpretation that Trump the kindly monarch sent it, but the local government, which consists of stupid and corrupt brown people, just let it sit because they don’t care about their citizens. This will probably be more of the same.
debbie
@Mary G:
As I recall, Trump’s initial battle plan was to call them whiners and dismiss them.
Jay C
Just an odd coincidence I noticed, but haven’t seen much made of in the media (AFAICT):
The number of deaths now attributed to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico (2,975) is pretty near the same toll from the attacks of 9/11/01.
OK: one number is from a natural disaster, the other from a terrorist attack – so not quite the same. But the contrast between the general public reaction to the latter (nationwide freakout – not yet abated 17 years on) vs. the former (ho-hum) is striking.
One might possibly assume some sort of institutional prejudice might be involved….
Mary G
@Mary G: Of course, all signs point to this being duplicated in the Carolinas and Georgia, where the government is much more white and Republican, which will be much harder to excuse. The stories about how all the prisoners in the mandatory evacuation zones are being left in place, along with the low-level prison employees, to ride out the storm as best as they can, are also enraging.
Elizabelle
@Jay C: I noticed that too.
9/11 has been fetishized, and while we mourn those who lost their lives, it’s a day that should be dialed down a bit. Remember the unity and selflessness, yes. Celebrate the aftermath: no fucking way.
I will now be doing my own Hurricane Maria remembrance. Maybe it will catch on.
Mnemosyne
@Mary G:
Yep, it’s already in operation on that Twitter thread: I can’t believe those incompetent Puerto Ricans would do this to themselves! with no mention of the fact that the water is on federal land and can’t be accessed by the govenment of Puerto Rico without federal permission.
And, yes, right-wing morons, FEMA is responsible for distributing emergency supplies, not the local government. It’s part of FEMA’s fucking JOB to do that, and they failed.
Litlebritdifrnt
There are lots of stories about prisoners in SC being left in place, but somewhere lost in all of this are the prisoners in county jails in all of the counties up and down the NC coast that are not being evacuated. Apparently the NC prisoners are not worth the twitter bomb about? WTF is that all about? I know that the Onslow County Jail is a fortress, with the admin offices on the ground floor and the jail cells above. But many of the jails are below ground, and those prisoners are being left there. They are going to drown. And no one cares?
Ryan
Game over man. Game over!
TenguPhule
When it rains, it pours.
TenguPhule
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Feature, not a bug.
Ryan
@Litlebritdifrnt: If they weren’t guilty they would not be there amitrite?
Ryan
3 to 4 feet of rain. Jeebus.
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: it’s in every damn twitter thread about FEMA. Somebody’s talking point, dunno whose, don’t care.
Major Major Major Major
Also, the EU parliament passed that copyright law. Final vote in January I think.
randy khan
Well, it should be easy to airlift all that water to the Carolinas, since it’s sitting in one place.
But, of course, it’s no surprise. Jose Andres, the D.C. chef who basically moved to Puerto Rico to feed people after the storm, has a book out about the experience and he calls out all of the terrible problems caused by FEMA incompetence.
Adam L Silverman
I’m going to the gym, because I’m all out of evens…
J R in WV
Now we know:
There is NO limit to the despicable behavior of Republican office holders and employees.
None.
Arrested for BS walking while black charges, DEATH PENALTY MOFO!!!
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
This misadministration is just overrun with very stable geniuses.
Edmund Dantes
My college buddy was IBEW electrician that went down a year ago.m to Puerto Rico to help out. He has posts from a year ago about the water being withheld.
Immanentize
@J R in WV:
Arrest? Hahahaahhaaah!
Patricia Kayden
Millions of bottles of water sitting on a runway since last Fall for what reason? How incompetent are Trump officials? It’s like they just don’t care. I hope the Puerto Ricans who moved to Florida to escape the impact of Hurricane Maria come out and vote in droves this November.
khead
So, the flying monkey wing of the GOP is WAY out in front of Hurricane Flo on my FB feed. You know that WaPo op-ed about the hurricane? The one that used the word “complicit”? That’s proof that THE MEDIA IS ACTUALLY BLAMING Trump for a hurricane. I’m sure you can find the meme photo.
Major Major Major Major
@Patricia Kayden:
Gosh
Edmund Dantes
.. It’s really bad here and there are signs that things are gonna get worse quickly. Homeland security & FEMA has all the resources but egos are clogging their ears … they are holding back on water distribution requests, Puerto Rico is about to have a Clean water CRISIS, simple math from one the doctors here breaking it down to Elaine Duke of HLS, an avg person needs 1 gallon of water a day…there are 4 million people on the island…. We need to get a minimum of 4 million gallons of clean purified water through the island per day…. Pin drop from HLS…. People are going to die. #freethewater #sueltaelagua #unionsunited
That’s from his post from October of 2017 on Facebook. There are pictures of the protest signs and stuff.
khead
Complicit
Laying some serious groundwork to pushback against the inevitable backlash from a shitty FEMA response.
SiubhanDuinne, Badass Jackal
Cheryl Rofer, if you’re around: What do you make of Charlie Pierce?
esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a23103546/im-definitely-not-saying-its-aliens/
Mary G
This is my shocked face (not). The Democratic Party should go to court for an injunction against Lieberman for using their name.
namekarB
I’m concerned about the people left behind because they do not have the means to evacuate. We can’t assume everyone has a car or money to get out of town.
TenguPhule
@Patricia Kayden:
how big is the universe?
MomSense
@Adam L Silverman:
Word. This Is a punching bag kind of night for me.
Mary G
Apparently the Wall Street Journal, which I don’t read, has an article out saying that Russian bots pushed for the repeal of ACA. That actually explains John McCain’s last second thumbs down much better than anything else I’ve heard. He may have hated Trump, and McConnell’s refusal to go through regular order, but it didn’t stop him voting yes on the tax bill.
namekarB
eschatonblog.com/2018/09/just-evacute.html
Roger Moore
@Patricia Kayden:
They’re almost as incompetent as they are malicious.
dr. bloor
Brown people, dude. If anything, someone’s getting a promotion.
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major:
The international jurisdiction lawsuit should be fun.
TenguPhule
@Roger Moore:
Debatable.
Booger
@Elizabelle: Yeah, you can’t weaponize a hurricane in P.R.
JMG
@Mary G: You should read the Journal. Aside from the insane editorial pages, which are only two pages, its a great newspaper.
Mike in NC
Many of our neighbors at the beach evacuated on Tuesday, or even Monday. We finally decided to bug out this afternoon; 3-1/2 hours to Raleigh. Loaded up the car and grabbed three cats for a road trip. Just poured a round of martinis to begin to decompress. My main concern was loss of electricity for several days. The last hurricane we rode out with just 8-10 hours without power. Don’t expect to be that lucky this go-round…
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule: i believe the universe is finite so it’s not a great comparison.
BruceFromOhio
Lets start with the orange fartcloud and work down from there.
Corner Stone
@Mike in NC: Is Raleigh far enough to start relaxing?
Cermet
I am sorry for anyone getting hit but if any State would be the least one I’d feel bad about, certainly South Carolina (those brave souls that lead the US into civil war) would be it. I hope fema aids them but if it doesn’t they can only point at themselves for creating a government that doesn’t function as well as it should. Of course, their local loons (called, mistakenly, christians), would point at any northern State getting hit and say it was god delivering proper vengeance. Bet they won’t say that now (assuming the storm does change direction and go northward.)
BruceFromOhio
@Mike in NC: Glad you are safe, and I am applying your decompression protocol with a manhattan far, far away from any action. Raleigh-Durham is an interesting area, when visiting a friend in the R side of town we had much splendid food action.
I’ve been prowling the beachfront webcams and NOAA buoys, waiting for the inevitable. May your return be safe and swift.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Mary G:
Gee, all those guys have labels. What gives?
trollhattan
Popcorn time ahead, all kettles report to the galley.
Cheryl Rofer
@SiubhanDuinne, Badass Jackal: Good job jumping out of the plane! I don’t think I would do that, although my niece has.
As to what’s going on at Sunspot, my guess (and it’s only a guess) is that there has been a threat made. That’s the Otero County Sheriff’s guess, too, in the newspaper article that Pierce links. He didn’t quote that part.
People always seem to see Blackhawk helicopters in situations where they are suspicious of what is going on, but those sightings aren’t always real.
Interesting that the local sheriff is out of the loop, but there might be some national security thing going on. I doubt it’s aliens, although that’s always a fun thing to think about.
HAL
I’m a New York resident and I’m stuck between Cuomo and Nixon. I’m not sure Cynthia Nixon can win in the general, but I’m also not super enthusiastic about Cuomo. His campaign stinks of dismissive arrogance and I’m sure some of his new found views are based on Nixon’s challenge, but that’s also how politics works, so oh well. I just wonder if Nixon has the chops to make it as a NY governor and I’m not sure I’m willing to take the bet at this point.
khead
@Corner Stone:
Yes. My sister is breathing a serious sigh of relief. South Carolina is kinda screwed tho.
MomSense
@Mike in NC:
Glad you and the kittehs are safe and sound.
Major Major Major Major
@HAL: Cuomo is a bad person and breathtakingly corrupt, but Nixon ordered a cinnamon raisin bagel with lox and capers, so ??♂️
sgrAstar
@JMG: The WSJ is owned by Rupert Murdoch. Do. Not. Subscribe.
Gin & Tonic
@Major Major Major Major: Andrew also apparently has learned a campaign trick or two from Dad Mario “Vote for Cuomo Not the Homo.”
Mnemosyne
I will say this right now: if South Carolina does get screwed by FEMA, Trump’s fans will not lay a single iota of blame on him. It will all be the fault of the Deep State and it would all be fixed if only Trump knew, but the media refuses to tell him the truth.
Bank on it, libs!
SiubhanDuinne, Badass Jackal
Is that just FUCKING INFURIATING? Or FUCKING HEARTBREAKING? Or What the Fuck?
Can’t even. I feel homicidal and then some.
Adam L Silverman
@namekarB: This is absolutely correct. And it is what made Katrina so much worse. The year before Katrina, there were four hurricanes that started in or came into the Gulf of Mexico across Florida and caused evacuations to be called for New Orleans. They were fortunately unnecessary. But we learned important things: such as who did and did not evacuate, where they lived, and why. We had that human geographic data that told us who these folks were, the socio-cultural and socio-economic reasons they wouldn’t or couldn’t evacuate, and where they were in New Orleans. It gave us a map that should have been used before Katrina to get those folks out by giving them places to go and a means to get there. Much of the human devastation was completely avoidable/preventable.
Anotherlurker
FEMA works for the banks and insurance companies.
After Sandy, I said that they are good at passing out sandwiches and bottled water, but now, it appeares that they suck at that, too,
debbie
@HAL:
If she can’t win outright, I would like to see Nixon get enough votes to wipe that damn smirk off Cuomo’s face.
Tracy Ratcliff
@Mnemosyne: “If only the czar knew!”
Adam L Silverman
@MomSense: I didn’t make it to the gym. Got sucked into having to do something first. Now It’s just about 8 PM and it the hybrid thunderstorm monsoon is starting. Thundersoon? Monstorm?
Major Major Major Major
@debbie: even that seems pretty unlikely. However, Cuomo/Teachout may end up being a popular ticket split for people who want a check on Cuomo but don’t care for Nixon.
Adam L Silverman
@SiubhanDuinne, Badass Jackal:
khead
@Mnemosyne:
See previous post(s). I want to get on the record now because the response is so predictable.
MomSense
@Adam L Silverman:
I ended up with free weights but tomorrow I’m going to pummel that bag.
Mike in NC
Thanks for the well wishes, all. Last night the hurricane was moving northerly towards Camp Lejeune, and we expected it to hit the Outer Banks. But then it trended south. Looks like it will make landfall between Charleston and Myrtle Beach on Saturday morning.
There are currently five cats packed into this townhouse and we might try to make introductions tomorrow.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: It’s the bagels, isn’t it?
Ohio Mom
@HAL: If I was still living in NY, I would be as agonized as you are, for the same reasons.
For once, it’s good to be a Buckeye, I have no qualms at all for supporting Cordray for governor.
Adam L Silverman
@trollhattan: Will there be a movie?
What???//
Adam L Silverman
@HAL: Write in Bernie Sanders.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: The Elders will be discussing how Nixon’s crimes against culture will be dealt with during new business at next week’s meeting. Depending on the decision, I may or may not be authorized to provide an update…//
Adam L Silverman
@MomSense: I’m now two days behind for the week because of the holidays.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
There will of course be diehard Trumpers who refuse to accept that anything bad is his fault. But there will also be some former believers who suddenly discover what a disaster he is. Some of them will be people directly affected or who have family and friends directly affected, but some of them will be people who were starting to question and for whom this is the last straw. I know it seems to us as if his failures so far should be enough to turn anyone against him, but it takes a lot to change the mind of a believer.
Adam L Silverman
That Putin guy never takes a week off!
VOR
Duke Energy says they have 6 nuclear plants in the path of Florence. But not to worry, Duke says they were designed to handle hurricanes. Note: Fukashima was designed to handle a tsunami. Army Corps of Engineers is monitoring 5 federally owned dams. There are concerns about environmental issues from coal ash dumps and hog manure ponds near waterways. Glad I am far inland.
Catherine D.
@HAL: Andy Pandy must be somewhat worried, though, since his campaign called me for the first time ever, whether primary or general.
I finally decided on my primary votes today. This is the liveliest Dem primary I can remember in 30 years in Ithaca. Nice to see.
And screw No Labels giving money to Tom Reed.
schrodingers_cat
@Major Major Major Major: Is it? I thought that the jury was still out on that one. I thought that an expanding universe still the accepted hypothesis.
Adam L Silverman
@VOR: As I commented earlier today:
Barbara
@Mike in NC: I really hope you guys are safe in Raleigh. My daughter is living there and I wish she would come here.
Major Major Major Major
@schrodingers_cat: I always assumed ‘expanding’ required ‘bounded’, but I Am Not A Physicist.
Kathleen
@JMG: Glad to hear the excellent reporting has survived Murdoch’s regime. I used to love reading WSJ articles, which offered some of the best in depth reporting in the media.
Kathleen
@Mike in NC: Stay safe!
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major:
Unforgiveable. Who eats lox with raisins?!
MomSense
@Adam L Silverman:
I’ve been without a vehicle this week so I’ve missed the gym but I have walked to and from work all week. 4 miles round trip.
rikyrah
@Mike in NC:
Be safe ?
MagdaInBlack
3 children…….
TenguPhule
@MagdaInBlack:
Out of “can’t evens.”
Mai Naem mobile
I used to listen to a radio talk show on Sirius around the time of Katrina and there was a truck driver who used to call him who was given a truckload of ice and apparently he drove back and forth with this truck load of ice but never got instructions on exactly where to deliver it. I don’t remember what happened at the end but it sounded like a huge waste of resources.
Barbara
@MagdaInBlack: People sometimes give reasons like that when they can’t admit to other reasons, like no money.
John Revolta
@Gin & Tonic: For Chrissake if I gotta hear this crap one more time I’m gonna shit a big fat brick. Do you really think Mario Cuomo was responsible for a couple crappy campaign flyers stuck under a few windshield wipers in out in Queens? Get a fuckin’ clue.
Adam L Silverman
@MomSense: That’s a lot of miles.
MagdaInBlack
@Barbara:
Some do, yes.
Mike in NC
@Barbara: Our neighbors traveled as far south as Orlando and as far north as Fredericksburg, VA. We’re cranky old people and just don’t have the stamina for long drives even in good weather.
Procopius
@HAL: I haven’t been able to figure out why any Democrat would ever vote for Cuomo. Of course, the fact that he’s successfully corrupt is in his favor, but you would think that his well known maneuvering of a small group of Democrats so he could deliver the agenda of the Republican minority would work against him.
Mnemosyne
@Barbara:
That was my thought, too — she can’t afford to evacuate, but she needs to pretend to herself that she chose to put her life and her children’s lives in peril. Otherwise, it would be unbearable to sit there during the storm and realize you might all die because of your poverty.
I mean, even my narcissist sister in law in Florida moved herself and the two minor kids out of the way of the hurricane there last year.
Ladyraxterinok
@Mnemosyne: My parents’ neighbor during Reagan era came over 1 evening when I was in town and started complaining about some problem she was having with the fed govt. My dad said something like ‘But you said you voted for Reagan. Shouldn’t he be doing something about this?’
She said something to the effect that ‘Oh he’s such a nice man. I’m sure he has no idea how badly that progam is working.’!!!
dimmsdale
Happily voting for Nixon tomorrow. I’m satisfied that Cuomo is corrupt AF and has done deals for years with Republicans in the legislature to stymie progressive legislation, and I like how Nixon has been steadily pointing out that in terms of liberal Democratic values, the emperor Cuomo has no (or exceedingly threadbare) clothes. Voting for Teachout for AG for the same reason; my understanding is that Tish James (Cuomo’s favored candidate) has good progressive cred, but I’m dubious that she’d be nearly as effective as Teachout in terms of taking on vested (banking and real estate) interests, especially if James is beholden to Cuomo (or those interests) in any way.
I could always be wrong about all that, but it IS a primary; the general is in November. Be interesting to see how well Nixon does! (I don’t for a nanosecond expect her to win, but hope for a strong showing.)
As to the coming FEMA disaster, we face (as a nation) a cleanup as messy as what South Carolinians will face, only our job will be to rid the government of deeply embedded republicanism (of which bureaucratic incompetence in disaster response is only a very small subset). I am continually shocked at how ignorant people are about the nitty-gritty functions of government, that they can afford to be so cavalier about others’ misfortunes, and vote for these pustulent bloodsuckers.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
See, that’s why conservatives don’t want government, it can’t do anything. Of course they “forget” that it’s conservative governments that fail all the fucking time because they are totally incompetent (and fucking racist)
What gets me about the PR FEMA mess is that stuff like the water was shipped, unloaded and then sits there. Somebody was doing their job, maybe not everyone but water was delivered. Was it just fucking incompetence that no one had a clue how or to deliver it? Was it don’t give a shit, we sent them water, now it’s their problem? Is it a top down issue or is it a total lack of internal communication or message sent, message received, message ignored…
Does FEMA need to be rebuilt from the ground up so it’s at least possible this shit doesn’t keep happening? We know one thing for sure, conservatives suck at actual work.
Gin & Tonic
@John Revolta: Call your plumber to unclog that toilet, then.
MomSense
@Adam L Silverman:
My regular walk the dog loop is three so it’s not so bad.
Adam L Silverman
@MomSense: Okay. Hopefully it isn’t too hot and humid where you are and there are decent sidewalks.
Bill Arnold
@SiubhanDuinne, Badass Jackal:
Pretty cool. It’s a solar observatory, so the predominant conspiracy theory is that the observatory captured a frame or a few of something interesting moving across the disk of the sun, and that after this was discovered (ed: perhaps a month or more after the observations) the observatory was closed while all the image files were copied then carefully edited.
I’d embellish with something perhaps about pseudo-invisibility(stealth) mechanisms normally used by the alien(s)[0] for such transits (“to hide presences from the local wildlife”) not applied for some reason (under attack? :-) or that it was a transit by a stealthed (but not for solar transit) human space battle station or similar or a combination. Or something(s) closer enough to earth that only this solar observatory picked up the transit. (oops!)
ALIEN CONSPIRACY: Mystery as FBI SHUTS DOWN observatory – ‘They just EVACUATED us’
[0] Alien cardinality is probably fluid and difficult (or impossible) to specify. (What, you were thinking aliens made out of meat?)
John Revolta
@Gin & Tonic:Mario Cuomo was a good and a decent man. He would’ve probably made a good president but yeah, I think there were some family skeletons. He disavowed these crappy posters and the goombas who put ’em up. Nobody who lived in New York back then (as I did) ever believed he had anything to do with it. That’s not to say that some of his supporters weren’t homophobic and/or anti-Semitic.
Koch probably woulda made a decent president too (I told him so one time) but he was thin-skinned and had his own versions of some things.
I just get tired of the “homo” thing coming up every time somebody sats “Cuomo” around here.
P.S. Yeah, Andy’s an asshole.
Jack the Second
Eh, I have no reason to believe Cuomo is anything but a smarmy bastard and I wouldn’t shed a tear if he lost, but I find it hard to care about any of the recent primary challenges.
Cuomo is exactly the kind of politician everyone always accuses other establishment Democrats of being, the career politician who says or does whatever it takes to keep himself in office while engaging in low-level malfeasance to enhance his own power, fortunes, and standing. He enjoys and benefits from the split in the state legislature, but if we get a good Democratic legislature he won’t be an impediment. He’s a villain, but the sort of mildly annoying but obnoxious villain you can deal with last, after all the Republicans New York sends to Congress or the state legislature.
Meanwhile all of the challengers who make it to a primary don’t have any prior political experience. It makes it hard for me to get enthused when people want to jump into politics at the highest level.
Finally, as long as Cuomo is busy playing governor he’s fairly harmless. He occasionally flirts with a presidential run, but you kick him out the governorship and it’s going to be nothing but Cuomo-for-President, 24/7. As governor you barely have to hear from or about him, he’s safely out of the way in Albany.
Jack the Second
Meanwhile I’m getting popover Cynthia Nixon video ads :-(
Mnemosyne
So, New Yorkers, I guess I’m a little confused — are there no term limits for the governor in your state? Because although I don’t think that legislative term limits work, you gotta have a term limit on the governor (executive) or else you end up with … well, with the mess you have now. Virginia’s 1-term limit is dumb, but 2 consecutive terms seems to work for us in California.
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
There are term limits. They’re called elections. Long tradition of extended governorships in NY, and it is still standing.
Over the past 100 years, Al Smith was elected governor 4 times, Herbert Lehman 4 times, Thomas Dewey 3 times, Nelson Rockefeller 4 times, Mario Cuomo 3 times and George Pataki 3 times.