Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about it’s history.”

We won’t go back.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Republicans do not pay their debts.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

“Joe Biden deserved better than he got from some folks in his own party.”

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

I desperately hope that, yet again, I am wrong.

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

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Culture Warring Among the Ruins

Culture Warring Among the Ruins

by | 157 Comments

This post is in: , ,

I haven’t heard a Beltway hack call DeSantis “presidential” for his handling of the hurricane recovery efforts so far, but if they haven’t already, they will eventually. If you followed the press conferences in the immediate aftermath, DeSantis’s remarks were uncontroversial, which means he passed the Trump test by not saying anything overtly crazy, stupid or racist right away.

But the culture war bullshit resurfaced quickly. First, DeSantis warned that Florida is a “Second Amendment state” and said that people who visit the devastated coastal islands by boat for purposes of looting would get a nasty surprise. Anyone who ransacks wrecked homes to steal things (as opposed to trying to survive by scavenging for food and water, etc.), should be punished. No one seriously disagrees with that.

However, I’m skeptical that hordes of boat-borne thieves are descending on the affected areas to steal stuff, and I highly doubt it’s such an urgent problem the governor needed to address it on camera. I’m not saying boat-borne looting could never happen — this is Florida, after all, where someone once carved “TRUMP” on a manatee’s back, so depraved assholes definitely have access to boats (see also: boat parades!). But nautical wreckage looting isn’t really a thing.

You know what else isn’t a thing? The government making white people go to the back of the line while handing out federal hurricane relief. Definitely not happening, but that didn’t stop DeSantis’s former press secretary/Twitter troll and current campaign “rapid response” director/Twitter troll Christina Pushaw from lying about what Vice President Harris said in a recent DNC organization interview:

Culture War in the Ruins 1

This is a barefaced lie — Harris was asked a complex question about global warming and gave a multi-part response that touched on the Florida recovery efforts only briefly. She definitely did not say FEMA relief should be a reparations program like these troglodytes are claiming. Here’s a clip of the interview; the relevant discussions starts at the 4:23 mark.

Fox News and other con-media outlets and influencers jumped all over the bogus “controversy,” and DeSantis’s odious wife amplified one of the worst of them while shilling for relief donations. So did Florida’s attorney general, who allows corporate looters to ravage the state unabated.

These really are despicable people. I believed them the first time they told me that, and no amount of disaster-porn flexing will change their spots.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

157Comments

  1. 1.

    Honus

    “haven’t heard a Beltway hack call DeSantis “presidential” for his handling of the hurricane recovery efforts so far“

    seems I read exactly that this morning but I can’t find exactly where at the moment.  Something about DeSantis being presidential knowing how to appear dignified and serious in his response to to hurricane relief.

  3. 3.

    Cameron

    There is no bottom for these creatures’ depravity.  There is only the Void.  And P’shaw didn’t come up with that on her own – that’s pretty obviously a group effort.

  4. 4.

    zhena gogolia

    OT, but for fuck’s sake. NYT Opinion front page, big headline: “THE SUPREME COURT IS BROKEN. WHERE’S BIDEN?”

    Oh, for fuck’s sake. for fuck’s sake for fuck’s sake

    HER E-MAILS, you fucking fuckwits.

  5. 5.

    UncleEbeneezer

    The Right has been very effective at convincing a large swath of Americans that taking ANY measures to ensure that Black/Brown communities don’t get overlooked in any sort of govt assistance (as we know happens pretty much EVERY time) is the Real/Reverse Racism™.  I don’t even know if “convincing” is even the right term because they don’t even really need to sell this myth that is already widely believed by much of the American public and already was so, going back to Slavery.  You can literally read Slave Owners pushing this Oh-The-Govt-Is-Always-Putting-These-Blacks-Before-Us bullshit in Thavolia Glymph’s excellent book Out Of The House of Bondage.  It is part of the mythos of the American psyche at this point, and is probably one of the first examples of the fact that in America if enough White People believe something, it becomes the assumed truth no matter how inaccurate it is.

  6. 6.

    Betty Cracker

    @Cameron: I’m sure Pushaw didn’t come up with it herself, but now that she’s taken up the banner as a campaign official, we’ve got to call bullshit.

    One of the bullshit purveyors selectively edited the clip above in a way that could be convincing if you trust the source and/or don’t independently seek out the context.

    That’s how I first learned of Harris’s remarks — someone on Twitter was peddling a short clip as Harris’s views on Hurricane Ian aid distribution. I knew it couldn’t be right when I heard it and searched for the context, but lots of people won’t.

  8. 8.

    bbleh

    Well, *I* read on the Internets that the Democrats actually caused all the problems by using weather modification to make Ian stronger than it should’ve been and sent it over Republican areas!!

    (I am not making this up.)

  10. 10.

    Kay

    I think there’s probably a lot of political risk for DeSantis. People are more demanding than they used to be as far as services delivered quickly- they’re borderline unreasonable. I expect any goodwill towards DeSantis sours quickly as the enormity of the damage and the extensive, costly and slow pace of restoration sinks in.  They’ll need someone to blame for this natural catastrophe and they’re going to blame him.

    What do we know about modern Republicans? They take absolutely no personal responsibility, they are hugely entitled, they are always victims and they are never, ever satisfied.

  12. 12.

    WaterGirl

    @zhena gogolia: I give them credit for getting it half right. A NYT headline with THE SUPREME COURT IS BROKEN is something to be celebrated.

    Apparently, everyone things the President can do whatever he want.  BidenL “Now where’s my magic wand, I’m sure it’s here someplace.”

  13. 13.

    Cameron

    @Betty Cracker: I totally agree it’s got to be called out, but DeTrumpis is good at deflecting blame.  If any real backlash came out of this, P’shaw would be defenestrated faster than you could say “Andrew Warren.”

  18. 18.

    Geminid

    Politico put up two articles yesterday about Ian and Florida. One was titled “Desantis defends early hurricane response as questions mount over evacuations.” The article goes into controversies over late evacuation orders in the Fort Myers area.

    At his press briefing yesterday, DeDantis defended tardy notices on grounds that the hurricane path was hard to predict. As proof of this, he pointed out that some people evacuated from Tampa to Fort Myers, which I thought reflected more on DeSantis’s own malpractice than on defects of meteorology. An NBC report says that Florida’s death toll is now at 77 people and is expected to rise.

    A second Politico article is titled “Ian will ‘financially ruin’ homeowners and insurers,” and explains how and why.

  19. 19.

    Betty Cracker

    @zhena gogolia: If it’s the same op-ed I read the other day, the headline sucks but the essay’s thesis — that Biden is missing an opportunity to call out this corrupt partisan court — isn’t completely unreasonable. Personally, I think he probably will. He’s eventually done a lot of stuff people were screaming at him to do RIGHT NOW. Whether their entreaties had any influence, I don’t know.

  21. 21.

    Kay

    @Jackie:

    I wonder if they know they can’t evacuate all those really vulnerable areas simultaneously so just do a quiet triage and designate them as taking a hit.

  22. 22.

    Cameron

    @bbleh: If he had really wanted to, Sleepy Joe Biden could have stopped Ian in its tracks with a Sharpie and a National Hurricane Center map.

  23. 23.

    Renie

    I thought I read somewhere that DeSantis was asking people to donate money to the State of Florida.  That sounded pretty vague to me and I was wondering where exactly that money was going.  Anyone else see that and know anything about it?  My first reaction was it’s going to his campaign funds instead of relief aid.

  24. 24.

    Juju

    The Pashaw troll isn’t even actually quoting anything the VP said. She’s quoting another Twitter troll going by the name of End Wokness’ interpretation of what the VP said.  If Pashaw actually had something she’d have quoted the VP directly. I’m always surprised people can’t figure that out. Whatever happened to critical thinking?

  28. 28.

    Leto

    people who visit the devastated coastal islands by boat for purposes of looting would get a nasty surprise

    The same thing happened after Katrina. When I was finally able to leave the base and head to our apartment, some of the homes had “Looters will be shot” scrawled on the side. As far as I know, no looting occurred, but white people were terrified that the Ni-CLANGs would come en masse and take their broken/washed away shit. Didn’t matter that a hundred mile diameter area looked like a post-apocalyptic wasteland scene, nope all those people are coming to loot our shit. /sigh

  29. 29.

    Kelly

    Florida Senator Scott voted against the hurricane aid bill and Florida Senator Rubio was absent.

  30. 30.

    Leto

    @Juju:

    Whatever happened to critical thinking?

    Welcome to the past thirty years of conservatives relentless war on public education, along with the relentless shit spewing of Fox/conservative media.

  34. 34.

    Juju

    @zhena gogolia: The question isn’t “where’s Biden? ‘  It should be “ Why weren’t you this upset when Senator McConnell broke the judicial nominating system and why can’t you remember that McConnell broke the judicial nominating system?

  35. 35.

    Baud

    @Juju:

    It’s another example of the media’s inability to take a stand against the right without hiding behind criticizing Dems for not being good enough.

  36. 36.

    Steeplejack

    Does anyone know if Kattails reported on her aged mother, who was going to ride out the hurricane with her husband in Port Charlotte?

    My own aged friend—who turned 85 on the day Ian hit (what a birthday present!)—is still without power in Naples. At last report (a text yesterday) she said that a friend had taken her to Publix to get (non-perishable) groceries. And she mentioned chicken nuggets, so I guess they hit a fast-food place.

    Naples was hit worse than anyplace except Fort Myers just to its north, so the power could be out for quite a while. My friend’s condo is five miles inland, so she didn’t get any damage. I don’t know how she’s keeping her phone charged. On the phone the other day she said she keeps it turned off most of the time except for periodic “checks,” but that only goes so far.

  37. 37.

    Kathleen

    @Kay: I hope your right. I just assumed they (and the national media) would blame FEMA and Biden. And get away with it.

  38. 38.

    Kelly

    @Baud:

    @Leto:

    Well that is really special. Republicans are always worse than I thought. The R’s all knew Democrats would pass the bill and the R’s will take credit for it anyway.

  39. 39.

    Geminid

    DeSantis’s line, “we’re a 2nd Amendment state” is bullshit too. All 50 states allow citizens to keep firearms in their homes unless they are felons or otherwise prohibited.

  40. 40.

    Kathleen

    @WaterGirl: FTFNYT has either bought into the “Dark Brandon” the all powerful meme or “with the flick of his pen Biden could cancel right wingers on the Supreme Court” meme.

  43. 43.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: If it’s the same essay I read last week, the writer talked a lot about how FDR excoriated the SCOTUS of his era. He said FDR overreached when he tried to pack the court but effectively marshaled public opinion against it for electoral gain, IIRC.

  45. 45.

    Leto

    @Kelly: and that’s where we are with Republican “policy” now. Dems have just enough votes to pass needed legislation, R’s vote no on everything then go home and take credit for it, while their voters keep sending them back. There’s literally no downside for them. It’s maddening.

  46. 46.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker:

    I didn’t read the essay. If the author is talking about the 1936 election, I doubt whether the Supreme Court was a major factor in Dem success that year.

  50. 50.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Kathleen: White, male comedians especially.  There’s really only a handful that aren’t problematic.  Cauvin is Bi-racial so he has a much better perspective on things having family members who can’t pass, even though he often can.

  51. 51.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @zhena gogolia: First heard it on a TBGWT episode back during the 2020 Dem Primary and I was like “damn I hope he keeps this one around” because he perfectly gets Booker’s mix of Rhodes-scholar intellect and dorky humor (which I find endearing).

  52. 52.

    Steeplejack

    @Jackie, @Kay:

    > Lack of time to evacuate.

    Since I followed this very closely (friend in Naples), I will say—not in Rick Scott’s defense!—that Ian was predicted to hit Tampa Bay all along but then veered at the last minute (in hurricane time) and hit farther south. People in Lee County (Fort Myers) and Collier County (Naples) were given only about 24 hours’ notice, if that.

    As for “triage,” I think the dirty secret is that, in a country where half the people can’t take a $400 hit in an emergency, there are a lot of barriers to “evacuation,” which seems to consist mainly of opening some shelters and telling people to flee for their lives.

  53. 53.

    Alison Rose 💙🌻💛

    @WaterGirl: It would be fun to play Mad Libs with the headline and replace Biden with random people.

    THE SUPREME COURT IS BROKEN. WHERE’S BEYONCE?

    THE SUPREME COURT IS BROKEN. WHERE’S STEPHEN KING?

    THE SUPREME COURT IS BROKEN. WHERE’S MAYOR MCCHEESE?

  56. 56.

    Salty Sam

    @UncleEbeneezer: The Right has been very effective at convincing a large swath of Americans that taking ANY measures to ensure that Black/Brown communities don’t get overlooked in any sort of govt assistance (as we know happens pretty much EVERY time) is the Real/Reverse Racism™.

     

    When one’s entire life has been steeped in white supremacy, equality looks like oppression.

  58. 58.

    Cameron

    Florida is just so much more than a “Second Amendment State.”  It’s got a stand-your-ground law (often referred to by the acronym SANE: “Shoot A Negro Everywhere.”), too.

  59. 59.

    Suzanne

    @Steeplejack:

    As for “triage,” I think the dirty secret is that, in a country where half the people can’t take a $400 hit in an emergency, there are a lot of barriers to “evacuation,” which seems to consist mainly of opening some shelters and telling people to flee for their lives. 

    Agree. And evacuation is dangerous for many.

    Stricter building codes have been proving out. More structures are surviving higher winds. But we can’t build enough houses in this country….replacement will be long and difficult.

  62. 62.

    Leto

    @Baud: part of it is free riders, but we’re talking like 45% of the population and around 30 states? Idk, how sustainable is that in the long term? I mean I guess we’ll find out.

  64. 64.

    James E Powell

    @Baud:

    All Florida GOP House members did to.  They are confident in their voters’ hatred.

    Any reason to think they’re wrong?

  66. 66.

    Kay

    @Steeplejack:

    I lived in Wilmington, North Carolina 35 years ago – the entire discussion even then was that no one should build on Carolina barrier islands. They’re not building with an eye to evacuating – it never made any sense to build on them at all. There’s a kind of willful denial around this real estate. Where are all those people supposed to go?

  67. 67.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud: getting their voters to see that the Court, and the courts*, are involved in the issues they care about has been a challenge for Dems since ’92

    *and state legislatures and governors and for that matter the House and the Senate….

  68. 68.

    patrick II

    @Cameron:

    The NYTimes asks a fair question, because shouldn’t Biden be writing legal decisions that overrule the Supreme Court because he’s president?

  69. 69.

    Ruckus

    @Kay:

    “What do we know about modern Republicans? They take absolutely no personal responsibility, they are hugely entitled, they are always victims and they are never, ever satisfied.”

    This should be carved in stone somewhere. Only thing is, as an old, I saw this behavior before I was old enough to vote. It wasn’t as bad and it wasn’t as obvious, but it was there. Rethuglicans have been the party of we want ours, we want it now, and screw everyone else as much as we can get away with. They were this way 90 yrs ago and screwed the economy. They have been this way my entire life. Yes they weren’t as obvious about it because they didn’t lose as much. But as the population grew and especially as communications grew, their BS has become far more obvious. The only problem is that some people seem to be oblivious to BS, their BS detectors are defective. Oh and they seem to like screwing others, even at a cost to themselves, so there is that.

  71. 71.

    Salty Sam

    @Leto: The same thing happened after Katrina. When I was finally able to leave the base and head to our apartment, some of the homes had “Looters will be shot” scrawled on the side. As far as I know, no looting occurred, but white people were terrified that the Ni-CLANGs would come en masse and take their broken/washed away shit. Didn’t matter that a hundred mile diameter area looked like a post-apocalyptic wasteland scene, nope all those people are coming to loot our shit. /sigh

    Same thing in Houston after Ike-  I was sent in as part of a team of Facilities Managers for our company.  In the Clear Lake / Ship Channel area, boats were piled up in marinas like discarded toys (see recent pics of Ft. Myers), and armed guards posted at entrances with hand scrawled signs warning “Looters Will Be Shot On Sight!”

    I mentioned it to my mom (who has become a FoxNews zombie in the past decade), and said (sarcastically) “Yeah Mom, the brown people are gonna come take all your stuff…”. The sarcasm was totally missed, and she agreed wholeheartedly.  Sigh.

  72. 72.

    Leto

    @James E Powell: In anecdotal evidence, I’m seeing more normies wake up to the fact that blue states are essentially funding red states, and they’re getting nothing in return. Will that influence future voting patterns, or expectations of their own representatives? Idk.

  73. 73.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud: quite possible in the near term, but I think the bigger, longer-term problem is too many Dem and Dem-leaning activists take a top-down approach to government. Reading between the lines of a lot of criticism of Biden is a fundamental misunderstanding of how government works, from the barriers to federal action in states to the idea that Dems on the Hill are subordinate to the President. “Why doesn’t Biden just…”

    There was a perception under Bush and trump that they did anything they wanted, why can’t Obama and Biden do the same, but everything Bush and trump got away with was because they had, to greater and lesser degrees, Congress, and the Senate especially, on their side.

  75. 75.

    Salty Sam

    @Steeplejack: Naples was hit worse than anyplace except Fort Myers just to its north, so the power could be out for quite a while.

    When Hurricane Harvey made landfall a few miles north of the marina where we lived on our boat (we evacuated), it was over three weeks before power was restored.

  78. 78.

    Leto

    @Salty Sam: part of the advantage/disadvantage of growing up in the 80s was the fact that there was no 24/7 news, just the big three (and local). I also went through Hugo (basically landed right on top of us) and simply don’t remember if there was any of that “looter” bullshit. I’ll agree that it’s the continued crazification of the media sphere, as you saw with your mom, via Fox. And it’s getting worse with the spin off channels.

  79. 79.

    Ruckus

    @Juju:

    “Whatever happened to critical thinking?”

    Whatever made you think that even a majority of people are capable of critical thinking? A lot of people are only capable of minimal actual thought, the inside of their head is just a swirling mess of what is there to eat, I need to get laid, what time is it, what’s on TV.

  81. 81.

    Steeplejack

    @Kay:

    They’re not building with an eye to evacuating—it never made any sense to build on them at all.

    And they don’t even seem to be building with an eye to storm-proofing. The theory seems to be “Well, we’ll rebuild with the [federally backed] insurance money.”

    Where are all those people supposed to go?

    Exactly. Collier County, FL (Naples area), has about 376,000 people, according to Wikipedia. Almost all of them are concentrated on the coast. (Google map here.) A large part of the county is taken up by the Big Cypress National Preserve, and the county is adjacent to the Everglades. To “evacuate” to somewhere other than another place on the Gulf Coast, you practically have to cross the state to the Miami area.

  82. 82.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @Kay: I’d say willful denial is HUGE in real estate, period. After the ’93 floods in the St. Louis area, they built in the flood plain. Granted, they upped their levies a bit, but they built like crazy in a stupid flood plain. This is a problem everywhere. Several states in the southwest are being over developed well past their water supplies. I think Trump being a real estate developer makes a ton of sense. They fight every reasonable and responsible restriction on development, and once they’ve sold their doomed properties, its full speed ahead at denying responsibility and developing someplace else that is super problematic. Plus, racism is a huge part of the business.

  83. 83.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud: right, the best (non-trump) example, as Josh Marshall points out: Bush thought he had a mandate to privatize Social Security, when that was the first step in the movement that led to Speaker Pelosi and President Obama

  84. 84.

    trnc

    @Betty Cracker: I’m sure Pushaw didn’t come up with it herself, but now that she’s taken up the banner as a campaign official, we’ve got to call bullshit.

    Agreed. Biden should call a press conference with DeSantis and call him out directly for it.

  85. 85.

    Kay

    @Steeplejack:

    I saw a plan once where all barrier islands were converted into national parks. Anyone could go to a gorgeous, unspoiled beach for the day, but you had to get back on the bus at sunset. We probaby could have bought out the most vulnerable areas two or three times over for just what we’ve paid in disaster relief/restoration.

  86. 86.

    jayne

    I wonder if anyone in Florida who was cheering on the gubnor’s multimillion dollar human trafficking stunt is having second thoughts on how that money was spent yet.

  87. 87.

    Jeffro

    Dems would do well to point out, each and every time that

    1) Outrage is all that the Rs offer, ever, and

    2) They will never stop taking things out of context, misinterpreting things on purpose, or outright lying in order to Do Outrage with their base.

    Literally, say it every time.  Maybe add

    3) for all you Outrage Junkies out there on the right…you’re being used on a daily basis by the Rs.  USED

  88. 88.

    scav

    ah, the sweethearts think so much of their lives that they assume everyone wants their waterlogged bedraggled busted shit, wants it soooo much they’re going to drive hours and hours over broken roads past other random piles of debris to target their stuff specifically. the second-hand market for moldy stuff must be incredible.

  90. 90.

    Steeplejack

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    A lot of what the Republicans “get away with” is even less top-down than that. We have so many state legislatures that are controlled by, or riddled with, GQP radicals and Trumpist nutters, all working on crazy legislation and gumming up the works for anything useful or productive. Ditto for state administrations. We’ve got GQP state attorneys general banding together to get overtly involved in blatantly political issues. Not a good look for “administering the law without fear or favor.”

  91. 91.

    gene108

    @jayne:

    I doubt it.

    I think a large portion of conservatives are convinced government doesn’t exist to provide services like roads, education, etc., and don’t expect anything much from their elected officials in return.

    Used to be a poor response to a natural disaster would hurt a politician, but I doubt that’s the case among Republicans any longer.

  93. 93.

    Steeplejack

    @Kay:

    Exactly! Plus, barrier islands are somewhat “mutable” by their very nature. What’s that biblical parable about building your house upon the sand?

  94. 94.

    WereBear

    @gene108:

    Used to be a poor response to a natural disaster would hurt a politician, but I doubt that’s the case among Republicans any longer.

    I’m reading Dragged Into the Light: Truthers, Reptilians, Super Soldiers, and Death Inside an Online Cult by Tony Russo.

    Best book I’ve read yet on how and why these cults happen.

  95. 95.

    sab

    @Leto: My BIL was a newspaper editor in Louisiana. After Katrina he had a whole herd of reporters out chasing the looter stories they were hearing about on national  cable news. They came up with absolutely nothing to confirm the stories. Cable news guys invented it out of whole cloth. He was pretty disgusted.

  99. 99.

    Kelly

    @Steeplejack: Building on the sand goes on everywhere. In 1906 an Oregon developer started the resort community of Bayocean on the sandbar between Tillamook Bay and the Pacific. Started washing away in 20 years, was gone by the 1950s. The most deluxe 1970s development on the Oregon coast is Salishan on a similar sandbar a little further south on the Siletz bay. Houses on that Siletz sandbar go for a million bucks. Everyone there will die when the Cascadia quake tsunami hits.

  100. 100.

    Mai Naem mobile

    Pushaw’s just another Russian asset. I don’t think there are any 2024 GOP POTUS wanna be candidates who don’t have Russian assets close around them.

  101. 101.

    Leto

    @sab: everyone was underwater, or trying to figure how to just fucking live from hour to hour. It was a collective process of trying to understand what just happened, and wtf to do next. I knew of more people coming together, of every background/stripe/creed, to help each other than anything resembling conservative media. Just eternal hate for all of them.

  107. 107.

    NorthLeft

    Sorry I did not ask this earlier, but I am constantly hearing before, during, and after hurricanes (especially) and other natural disasters that people are terrified of hordes of looters descending on their castles, er, homes.

    Is that really a thing in the US? I mean are there people who actually do this?
    Are there people who would risk their life (LOOTERS WILL BE SHOT!!!) for a waterlogged TV or PlayStation?

    Yeah, yeah, I saw the video from Katrina. But really, is this something for people (the ones who stay in their homes) to risk their lives over?

  108. 108.

    WaterGirl

    @Bex: His makeup people must hate him.  Everyone must hate him otherwise they would tell him to take the orange makeup all the way to the hairline.

  109. 109.

    Wahldbill

    Donated to Red Cross for Florida hurricane relief. Not sure if RC is politicized or not.

  112. 112.

    Mike in NC

    Caught about 15 seconds of DeSadist whining about some alleged “left wing” bullshit on MSNBC this morning. Just a complete asshole, like every other Florida Republican.

  113. 113.

    MomSense

    @Betty Cracker:

    I’m not sure it’s a good idea.  The Court itself is making the best case for why it is corrupt, partisan, and completely out of touch.  I think Biden needs to stick with talking about what we can do about it.  Right now that means voting and a filibuster carve-out to codify Roe and Casey (hell I’d like to revisit Webster while we’re at it) until the Court gets a chance to scrap that.  Maybe by then we will have enough momentum for expanding the Court.

  116. 116.

    dr. luba

    @Steeplejack: There are around 2,500 cyclone shelters and multipurpose cyclone shelters along the 710 km long coast of Bangladesh. They have gradually been constructed since the devastating cyclone of 1970 to provide a safe haven facility for the coastal population.

    This is something, perhaps, that our coastal states should be doing. Instead of, you know, telling people to evacuate and then send hopes and prayers.

  117. 117.

    Another Scott

    @dr. luba: +1

    I was in DC on 9/11/2021 9/11/2001.  When the OPM dismissed federal employees, it caused gigantic traffic jams – I think it took me about 4-5 hours to get home (when it usually takes less than 30 minutes).  After that, they developed “shelter-in-place” procedures.

    “Shelter-in-place” (or at local shelters) is the only sensible course in large metro areas when short-time-frame emergencies happen.  And they will happen (especially around the Gulf coast).

    “We’re doing planning for the future.  No shelter available for you on the coast because of the geography?  Well, sorry, but you’ve got to move.  We’ll pay part of the costs, but staying is not an option…”

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  119. 119.

    Suzanne

    @NorthLeft:

    Is that really a thing in the US? I mean are there people who actually do this?
    Are there people who would risk their life (LOOTERS WILL BE SHOT!!!) for a waterlogged TV or PlayStation? 

    I mean, I never cease to be amazed by the tendency of some people to be terrible, including opportunistic thieving, which is a behavior I find really fucking distasteful. But, like, I don’t think it’s any more intense after a hurricane than it is at any other time. And it’s certainly not worth sticking around in a disaster to protect it. Other than a few heirlooms and things like photo albums, it’s all replaceable. The cops don’t even care about your personal effects being stolen or destroyed unless it’s firearms.

  122. 122.

    artem1s

    @Leto:

    I also went through Hugo (basically landed right on top of us) and simply don’t remember if there was any of that “looter” bullshit

    had family living north of Charleston when Hugo hit the estuary dead on.  The area lost 3 major bridges that accessed the outer islands. And the roads along the coast were blocked with downed trees and power lines. They had to bring in a tank landing ship for residents to get back on to Isle of Palms – the swing bridge over to the island got knocked off it’s pivot. But mostly, there was nothing to loot. Sullivans Island lost 80% of it’s structures; Isle of Palms – 60%. Not damaged. Gone. swept out to sea by the tidal surge. The historic district survived pretty well but the north side and the low country north of the city was also devastated. There was debris piled up in the median of I-17 for 2-3 years afterward. Most people got off the islands before the storm and just couldn’t get back in without a National Guard escort. The storm also spawned over 100 tornados that swept across SC; NC and GA. 200 mile and hour winds took out the bulk of GA white pine crops. Looters were the least of their problems.

  123. 123.

    Kay

    @Kent:

    Its low-lying swamps have been drained, thanks to an astonishing 400 miles of canals—the most of any city on earth—that serve not only as the city’s stormwater management system but also its defining real estate amenity.

    Years ago we lived in a small rural development that backed onto storm drainage ditches. The soil was heavy so the developers tiled the lots and routed excess water to these ditches. When my childrens cousins came from southern California they wanted to go play in the “river” – the drainage ditch. They should have sold the lots as “beside a babbling brook”.

  124. 124.

    Cacti

    Personally, I’d like to tell all of these red state fuckknuckles coming with their hands out for disaster relief to fuck right off and “pull themselves up by the bootstraps”.

  127. 127.

    Bill Arnold

    @bbleh:

    Well, *I* read on the Internets that the Democrats actually caused all the problems by using weather modification to make Ian stronger than it should’ve been and sent it over Republican areas!!

    We couldn’t allow it to make landfall in Tampa – DeSantis’s demands for “ring”-kissing would have been insufferable; he was already clearly salivating about the anticipated forced grovelling and his associated Fascist-lite rhetoric. And Tallahassee votes for Democrats.
    (The strength part is a freebie; simple physics – warmer Gulf water, a local effect of global heating. Blame for US share of the blame: Republicans. (Historically, both parties.))

    FWIW, the more mainstream loopy theory is that the Deep State is doing weather control to create and steer those Red-State Hurricanes.
    Far-right pundits baselessly claim Hurricane Ian was created by the ‘deep state’ to target Gov. Ron DeSantis and other red states: ‘They are angry with us’ (Taylor Ardrey Oct 1, 2022)
    (This is false. The US government does not know how to control hurricanes. )

  130. 130.

    kalakal

    @Steeplejack: I have a couple of powerbanks. that’ll get me about 10 to 12 recharges for the phone. I also got a small folding solar panel thingie  that’ll charge a phone. Maybe that’s what she’s doing

  132. 132.

    Bill Arnold

    I poked a couple of days ago about social science relating natural disaster to elections results, and did not find much. (PDFs, for those who care.)
    Up through 2008, in Florida it depended on how incubments handle the disaster:
    Florida Elections and Hurricanes (2008)

    This PhD candidate was unable to reject the null hypothesis (that there is no reliable effect on elections):
    Disastrous Voting (December 2018, Moritz Peter Rissmann, long PhD Thesis)

  135. 135.

    Leto

    @artem1s: I remember the hedges being destroyed, including the one going to aisle of Palms that was knocked off the pivot. Also remember the issue accessing the other islands, like Johns Island, because my parents other house was there and we went there to assess the damage. 2 acres cleared with the house on it, 3 acres of wooded lot. I spent just about every weekend, when I wasn’t playing a soccer game, there cleaning everything with my parents. Just a ton of work.

  136. 136.

    Geminid

    @WaterGirl: I picked up a small folding photovoltaic phone charger at Harbor Freight for about $25. It charges my phone maybe 10% an hour on a sunny day. I’m not sure if a “powerbank” is a battery unit; those are widely available. The one I have is good for about 2 1/2 charges. They’re a handy thing to have.

  138. 138.

    Another Scott

    @WaterGirl: A “powerbank” is a rechargeable battery for powering things, from cell phones on up.  They vary in size from cigars to gigantic things like Jackery power stations.

    You can buy portable solar panels to help keep them charged. Jackery has such things, and you can also get them at Amazon and REI.

    While they’re getting better all the time, one still needs to have reasonable expectations on what can be powered by them. ;-) And batteries still wear out, so that’s something to consider as well.

    HTH!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  140. 140.

    Miss Bianca

    @Bill Arnold: These are the same people who believe *God* is the one who sends adverse weather conditions to plague the infidels in blue states, right? So who’s *actually* in charge of the weather – God, or the Deep State?

    SOMEONE ANSWER ME!!11!!

  141. 141.

    Another Scott

    @Miss Bianca:

    Relatedly, Robyn at Wonkette – ‘Mark Of The Beast’ Worries Making Some Republicans Unsure About Voter ID:

    […]

    If we have to live among people who insist upon believing ridiculous things — and unfortunately we do — we may as well figure out a way to use that to our advantage. So yes, drivers licenses and indeed all forms of photo ID are definitely the Mark of the Beast, and Satan gets very excited every time you use his or her special mark to buy booze or vote in a state like Alabama. So really, either good, God-fearing Christian conservatives should oppose voter ID, or they should refuse to vote at all. Because voting could also be the Mark of the Beast.

    Worth a shot?

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  142. 142.

    trollhattan

    @Another Scott: Interesting trend I’m beginning to see is repurposing old car battery packs–both hybrid and full EV–to power home and other offgrid batteries. Because it’s a much less demanding environment, they can serve for many more years. The Prius was introduced in the States twenty-one years ago!

  145. 145.

    Jay

    @Another Scott:

    Most modern “power banks” use AGM batteries.

    The one I have is good for about 5 jump starts off of a single charge, and using the cigarette lighter port and an adapter, can recharge or run 12v stuff from cell phones to laptops. It also has a spot light (LED) and area light. It weighs about 3lbs.

    If kept fully charged after use, most AGM batteries are good for about 25 years.

    The big killer for AGM,s is being stored in freezing conditions or being stored with less than a full charge.

  146. 146.

    Bill Arnold

    @Miss Bianca:

    So who’s *actually* in charge of the weather – God, or the Deep State?

    SOMEONE ANSWER ME!!11!!

    They are wrong about [Deities)] – [Deities)] do not like them.
    Except for Satan, who nurtures and sustains them.
    Or is that Mammon? At least Mammon is obvious about delivering the goods.

  147. 147.

    Bill Arnold

    @Another Scott:

    Worth a shot?

    Yes. Just remember that successful Right-Wing memes in the USA are nearly immortal – they could be resurfacing in modified form 50 years from now. I.e., be careful.

  148. 148.

    kalakal

    @WaterGirl:Basically large rechargable batteries. you can get them at hardware stores, Amazon etc. They often have a flashlight built in, I have one that’s good for jumpstarting a car about 4 times (which was why I got it) but also has about 3 powered usb ports. After Irma I got a couple more. They’re pretty useful.

    The solar panel gizmo is about the size of an A4 note pad, unfolds to 3 panels about that area with a couple of usb ports built in It’s not speedy but better than nothing & Florida is sunny. One thing I’ve learnt is if a hurricane is coming you have everything fully charged up to the last minute.

  149. 149.

    Geminid

    @Cacti: Florida’s a 52%R-48D% state, probably closer, when it comes to Presidential elections. The only reason it has a deep red legislature is gerrymandering. Same with Texas.

  150. 150.

    trollhattan

    @Jay: My car has an AGM battery, the original, and its build date was ten years ago this month. Amazing–don’t think I’ve gotten more than five from a reg’lar lead-acid battery, and sometimes much less.

  151. 151.

    Jay

    @trollhattan:

    Lead acids require regular “service” which mostly consists of cleaning off the terminals, then once reconnected, greasing them to keep the oxidization down, and topping up the cells with distilled water. They are sensitive to low water, as that causes sulphide (sp) to form on the plates, reducing the ability to recharge and hold a charge. Thickness of the lead plates is generally the difference between a cheap batter and a better one.

    Our solar system’s 2V lead acid batteries in Kamloops were at 80% after 20 years, but then I topped up the batteries weekly

    These days you can buy a similar AGM battery array for a couple hundred less than what I paid back then for lead acids. Prices have dropped way down on AGM’s, more than 50% in 20 years.

  152. 152.

    Another Scott

    @Geminid:

    The only reason it has a deep red legislature is gerrymandering and voter suppression of all shapes and sizes. Same with Texas.

    FTFY.

    That’s why I often push back on “statewide races can’t be gerrymandered” arguments. No, not in the narrowest meaning of the word. But statewide elections can be, and too often are, tilted so that candidates pick their voters, just as gerrymandering is done so candidates can pick their voters. Restricted registration requirements, restricted valid IDs, restricted polling places and hours, restricted voting equipment availability, restricted early voting days, restricted drop-off boxes, voter list purges, post-incarceration voting restrictions, and on and on.

    Grr…,
    Scott.

  154. 154.

    Texasdoc

    @Leto: This does actually happen.  After hurricane Ike, a friend who had stayed in Galveston put my dining room furniture and several book shelves out to dry. Someone drove by and took all of it. After another storm, they closed off the west end of the island until all the roads were open, and some people took boats to loot those homes.

  155. 155.

    Bill Arnold

    So did Florida’s attorney general, who allows corporate looters to ravage the state unabated.

    New rules, according to DeSantis – corporate looters can be shot. Right? Right?
    Seriously, Ron DeSantis appears to be approving of vigilante capital punishment for property crimes. White collar property crimes are the biggest property crimes.

  156. 156.

    Chip Daniels

    Whenever I hear these techlords speak, or write on Twitter, it reminds me of the show Succession, where these incredibly mediocre  and unimpressive young men are somehow gifted with godlike power and influence, sort of like that Billy Mumy character in Twilight Zone.

     

    Or, to be more pointed, it reminds me of the late French monarchy just before the Revolution.

  157. 157.

    Matt McIrvin

    @NorthLeft: I think the Ur-story that spawned a lot of that fear was the 1977 New York City blackout, during which there really was an enormous amount of looting, vandalism and arson. It became the template for a thousand fictional depictions of society descending into a war of all against all at the slightest disruption.

    Of course, a blackout is a very different thing from a disaster that physically destroys the entire area. Also, other large blackouts even in New York City, before and since, have resulted in nothing like that level of chaos. It was most likely the culmination of social, racial and economic tensions that had been building there for a long time.

Comments are closed.