We passed a bill on Friday that included $18.8 billion for FEMA’s hurricane response.
Every Florida Republican, including Matt Gaetz, voted no. https://t.co/N7uxZScWHM
— Rep. Gerry Connolly (@GerryConnolly) October 2, 2022
I halfway feel like I’m stepping on Betty’s turf, but these Repubs! Nasty little would-be warlords, stealing every penny they can loot, trying to recreate a medieval fantasy where every baron swaps or steals goods and serfs, each one dreaming of becoming King Sh*t of Dung Mountain…
There ought to be a law. There are, in fact, quite a few laws which seem to have been broken here. Who’s gonna enforce them?
Perla Huerta, former Army counterintelligence, was the coyote hired by Desantis to lure migrants with lies onto the flight to Martha’s Vineyard. He still won’t talk about or provide any info to the public. https://t.co/nrJf2TFxlq
— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) October 2, 2022
SAN ANTONIO — In June, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a budget that set aside $12 million to create a program for transporting unauthorized migrants out of Florida. He touted it as the highlight of the state’s new spending when it came to immigration.
But just three months later, the money was being used in a place far from Florida, in a very different way: rounding up Venezuelan asylum seekers on the streets of San Antonio and shipping them on private planes to Massachusetts…
Florida officials have provided little information about the program or how it was engineered. But details have begun to emerge of the clandestine mission that was carried out without the knowledge of even the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, a fellow Republican: flights paid for with state money in possible violation of the state law that allocated the money; a charter airline company with political ties to the Florida governor.
And, in the middle of it all, a woman with a background in military counterintelligence who investigators believe was sent to Texas from Tampa in order to fill the planes…
Ms. Huerta, a former combat medic and counterintelligence agent, was discharged last month after two decades in the U.S. Army that included several deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, according to military records.
A Venezuelan migrant who was working with Ms. Huerta to recruit migrants confirmed her identity, and a migrant in San Antonio whom Ms. Huerta had unsuccessfully sought to sign up identified a photo of her in an interview with The Times. Several of the migrants on Martha’s Vineyard photographed her during the recruitment process in San Antonio, according to Rachel Self, a lawyer representing the migrants. Lawyers working with them were able to match those photos with others online and in social media belonging to a woman named Perla Huerta…
In the case of the flights to Martha’s Vineyard, Florida state records show that an airline charter company, Vertol Systems, was paid $615,000 on Sept. 8 and $950,000 less than two weeks later. The first payment was for “project 1” and the second payment for “projects two and three.” So far, Florida officials have acknowledged only the initial flights and have not spoken of plans for others.
The money to fly migrants came from a special $12 million appropriation in the state’s last budget, a brief item that gave funds to the state’s Department of Transportation to create a program “to facilitate the transport of unauthorized aliens from this state.”
The program was conceived as a means for Florida to push back on the number of unauthorized migrants being flown into the state by the federal government. As of August, Mr. DeSantis said the funds had yet to be used, because the additional large groups of migrants that had been expected had failed to materialize.
He set his sights on the place where most migrants were initially arriving — Texas…
Vertol Systems, which was founded in the mid-1990s, offers aviation maintenance and training services, and does work for the U.S. government. Over the years, the company has increasingly networked with Republican power brokers in Florida.
In litigation, court records show, Vertol was once represented by Matt Gaetz, now a Republican member of Congress and a close ally of Mr. DeSantis. Another lawyer whom the company used for a series of lawsuits, according to information first reported by NBC News, was Larry Keefe. Mr. Keefe is now serving as Mr. Desantis’s public safety czar, leading efforts to confront immigration issues…
Everybody gets a taste! (And I sincerely hope they’ll all get to experience painful legal consequences, in return.)
On The Road – Albatrossity – Chasing Summer into Fall in Flyover Country – 1
Baud
Meanwhile, “why won’t Dems call out Republicans on this?” #Internet
mrmoshpotato
Great constituent services there, Matty the Molester!
Geminid
Barry Manilow probably doesn’t deserve this. But maybe he does. Anyway-
” Her name was Perla!
She was a squirrel-a.
She told so many lies,
It made me want to hurl-a!”
lowtechcyclist
@Geminid: Barry Manilow always deserves it.
Oh Perla,
You came and you took all those migrants
Oh Perla,
And you sent them away, oh Perla…
lowtechcyclist
Now if the Dems were the sort of party that put gamesmanship over the well-being of American citizens, we would have had just enough Dems voting against the bill that it would have needed those Florida Republican votes to pass. Then we could have blamed them for tanking the bill.
But the difference between Democrats and Republicans is that we’re not that sort of party.
That’s enough reason to be a Democrat, right there. (There’s at least a hundred other reasons at least as good, but if they all went away, this one would still suffice.)
Jeffro
I wasn’t gonna do it but I did it anyway: stayed up and watched the whole, beautiful SNF game last night (Go Chiefs!)
And having said that…I need a nap already.
Chief Oshkosh
Perla was discharged from the Army last month? I wonder if she was doing this shit or shit like it while she was in. Maybe her command needs a review.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
👍
OzarkHillbilly
Liz Truss abandons plan to scrap 45p top rate of income tax amid Tory revolt
This is my shocked face:
Baud
I thought the people he trafficked weren’t unauthorized.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
How bad do you have to be to get the Tories to react negatively to a tax cut for the rich?
OzarkHillbilly
@Jeffro: No doubt that has made my son and his wife happy.
Betty Cracker
Please don’t ever feel like you’re stepping on my turf, AL! Florida has far too much Republican malfeasance for us to cover on this blog, even if every one of us devoted 100% of our time to that effort!
I’m glad the NYT ID’d Perla. The FL dailies must feel scooped and will hopefully respond by redoubling their efforts to get to the bottom of the grotesque and wasteful stunt. Unraveling criminal enterprises typically requires getting underlings to flip on crime bosses.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Details details… What a nitpicker you are.
Baud
Was Geatz’s district affected? The FL panhandle is very red and the panhandle wasn’t affected. Don’t know where Gaetz is from?
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
You thought correctly. But given that they ignored the difference between Texas and Florida, one certainly shouldn’t be surprised that they overlooked less blatantly obvious details like their legal status.
Geminid
@Chief Oshkosh: There is definitely a story here. Ms. Huerta appears to have been in Special Forces, and the Vertol air services company did comtract work for the federal government. I think a lot more skeletons are going to fall out of this closet pretty soon.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: If I remember my Stonekettle correctly, yes, Gaetz is panhandle.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: One of the sources for the NYT story is the San Antonio, Texas Sheriff’s Department. They confirmed “Perla’s” last name. San Antonio Sheriff Salazar has said he is investigating the first Martha’s Vineyard flight for possible crimes, and that was one of the reasons the second flight was scrubbed, I think.
Former Florida AG candidate Dan Uhlfelder has been looking into the matter, and says the Times stiry confirmed what he had found about Perla’s identity.
Uhlfelder was the guy who donned a Grim Reaper costume and walked Florida beaches at the beginning of the pandemic. He had another tweet yesterday about the death toll in Southwest Florida that was shocking, but not yet proven.
Baud
@Geminid:
Can’t wait for the airline to claim executive privilege in front of Judge Canon.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Thanks. So he’s not really hurting his constituents. I’m interested in the reps who represent the affected areas.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Betty Cracker
It’s interesting to watch the blame game evolve for local officials. Lee County emergency management is under fire for not ordering evacuations sooner. DeSantis is also being criticized for not emphasizing the danger.
Not sure how fair that is — as Adam said before the storm hit, everyone is working with the data they have, and we all know it’s not perfect. I was watching closely but didn’t really take the tracks seriously until the storm cleared Cuba.
But the thing about the Ft. Myers-Cape Coral area where the storm did end up coming ashore: there aren’t a ton of roads to get out except for I-75 and Hwy 41, which run north-south. The interior in that part of the state is swampy and/or farmland, so there aren’t a lot of east-west routes like there are further north.
So, given the need to move a relatively large population out on limited infrastructure, maybe they should have warned people sooner, even if the track was still uncertain. There will be a lot of blame to go around.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I’m not too concerned about fairness. I don’t think we should be unfair, but that doesn’t mean we have to help protect DeSantis from other people’s unfairness.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: The Florida Politics Monday morning “Sunburn” feature discusses the controversy over evacuation notices.
It also has a number of harrowing accounts of the hurricane. One concerned the Charlotte County hospital, whose first floor Emergency Department flooded while the fourth floor roof over the ICU blew off.
rikyrah
@Geminid:
😂😂😂😂😂
OzarkHillbilly
The granddaughters awaken. My Monday morn is done.
rikyrah
Anyone going to talk about the scammy feeling “charity” that DeathSantis’s wife has created to ” help” citizens of Florida
rikyrah
@OzarkHillbilly:
Awe 🤗
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I don’t give even the tiniest fuck about being fair to the venal liars who have affected my life in such a negative way either, and if I gave that impression, a thousand apologies. I’m more interested in how the region might learn some lessons from this catastrophe to limit loss of life in the future.
@Geminid: Yeah, I’ve been reading the FL Politics coverage. The editor, Peter Schorsch, is a mixed bag (he followed the Politico framing on how DeSantis handled the pandemic, to some extent). But he was scrapping with DeSantis admin officials on this issue over the weekend, notably Pushaw. Her reaction (shrieking like a scalded ferret) tells me Team DeSantis senses their vulnerability here.
rikyrah
Jason Garcia (@Jason_Garcia) tweeted at 10:58 AM on Sun, Oct 02, 2022:
A quote from the Financial Times:
“[Florida] lawmakers had ample warning about the need to act during the legislative session earlier this year, but they displayed more interest in waging culture-war battles than in helping Floridians to secure their lives and their property.”
(https://twitter.com/Jason_Garcia/status/1576602405579681798?t=xznb3xTpurQxVDxYAonwng&s=03)
rikyrah
Kenny BooYah! 🖖🏾 (@KwikWarren) tweeted at 6:16 AM on Mon, Oct 03, 2022:
Ron DeSantis bungled the response to COVID-19 and now he’s bungling the response to Hurricane Ian. In both cases he covered up deaths to cover up his own malfeasance. DeSantis is an incompetent demagogue who is unfit to be Governor of Florida.
(https://twitter.com/KwikWarren/status/1576893966640979968?t=C0yhZcGL1KXkp1YcfXUixg&s=03)
lowtechcyclist
@Betty Cracker:
There’s the obvious “don’t build (or in this case, rebuild) in low-lying coastal areas” but we know that’ll go over like a lead balloon.
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: I was saying on Twitter yesterday that reputable local journos should do an informational piece on the charity DeSantis is promoting. People are understandably suspicious of anything the grifting authoritarian shitweasel DeSantis promotes, so it would be a public service to provide some clarity.
FWIW, my impression is people are jumping to unwarranted conclusions about it and flooding the zone with unverified information, such as that DeSantis’s wife is in charge of the org or that it’s a brand-new charity. According to what I could find out via my own research, that’s not accurate.
Not that I’d put anything past DeSantis and associated crooks, but unless the accusers have inside info they aren’t sharing, there’s no proof DeSantis’s wife is running it, and the charity the donations are allegedly being funneled to (volunteerflorida.org) has been around since Hurricane Andrew.
My donations are going to outfits I trust like World Kitchen, but maybe the fund DeSantis is promoting is on the level. That’s the problem with having a divisive, belligerent, lying shithead in charge of the state government — no one knows what to believe.
MomSense
@OzarkHillbilly:
Have fun, OH!
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Skimming from a charity would be Trump like and that’s what DeSantis has been trying to achieve.
But I agree on calling out misinformation, or unverified information.
Baud
@MomSense:
How are you feeling?
Chief Oshkosh
@Betty Cracker:
I was involved in rescuing/transporting people in Charley and Irma (just another volunteer). Yes, a huge problem is that there’s pretty much just I-75 and Hwy 41 for escape routes, and often what affects one of those roads affects the other.
As to warning people earlier, when you look back on certainly Charley and Ian (I can’t remember about Irma), early warning was given, and many of those people did evacuate. However, the paths changed and the storms hit areas further down the “run now!” list. I guess a solution is that even wider areas be put under forced evacuation even earlier, but then I don’t see Florida spending the money to make that possible.
It’s all mute anyway. A lot of Florida will be under water year-round soon enough and a lot of Georgia farmers are going to become proud owners of oceanfront properties. :)
randy khan
The one thing that surprises me a little in that story is that Huerta used her real name.
Sanjeevs
Bolsonaro in a run off with Lula.
Bolsonaro significantly overperformed his polling. Seems to be a pattern with troll farm campaigns – Trump both times, Brexit Bolsonaro, Duterte. Can’t think of a single example of this sort of campaign underperforming vs the polling.
MattF
Very nice animation of Ian’s path.
Baud
@Sanjeevs:
Don’t know. Dems overperformed polling in 2018. May be a problem with polling methods in modern times.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Yep. We need independent third-party verification of the claims. If the outfit is on the level, they should welcome the scrutiny. It’s a shame that nobody can believe a word the governor says, but that’s his fault for being a lying shithead.
MomSense
@Betty Cracker:
I have never been evacuated and I don’t live in an area that has to deal with that kind of emergency much at all so I don’t have any personal knowledge or experience with this. As an observer, it does seem to me that we hear the same challenges to evacuation after every disaster. There are people who lack transportation and the funds to be able to go somewhere and find lodging or housing outside of the evacuation zone. There are people with physical disabilities and/or illness and their caretakers for whom just leaving without assistance is impossible. There are people who choose not to for various reasons and part of me wonders how many of those people choose not to because they lack the resources to evacuate so they justify staying.
What I don’t see is local/state government stepping in address those obstacles so people can leave. The juxtaposition of Florida’s governor putting together a coordinated plan and tons of money to traffic people tells me that they could have put a funded plan in place to move people out of harm’s way if they cared enough. DeSantis mobilized for a political stunt but not to save lives.
How much of this failure to deal with emergencies like this is just an extension of the selfish, fuck the poors, trickle down ideology? After so many decades of experience with natural disasters it seems less plausible that lessons couldn’t have been learned already.
Geminid
@Chief Oshkosh: When I travel to and from Myrtle Beach I see a new four lane highway leading to the South Carolina interior. It was built with hurricane evacuation in mind. Maybe Florida will build one like it for the Fort Myers area. I expect they’ll need six lanes.
Myrtle Beach was hit by Ian’s second landfall 50 miles to the south, near Georgetown. I think they lost two fishing piers. I was hoping to camp at Huntington Beach State Park later this month but I may have to pick another place. The park is between Myrtle Beach and Georgetown.
Betty Cracker
Shit like this doesn’t help build trust outside the DeSantis cult:
That’s just wildly inappropriate.
hueyplong
@lowtechcyclist: But not building in low-lying coastal areas would mean returning Florida to 1924.
Oh, I see. Carry on.
lowtechcyclist
@Chief Oshkosh:
Nah, it’s still pretty noisy. ;-)
But a foot or two in sea-level rise won’t put that much more of Florida under water, or having to watch out for storm surges, than is the case now.
The properties that will be under water, or unusable due to chronic higher high tides than usual, will be a lot of Florida’s most expensive property.
I assume that most of that property couldn’t possibly get insured, absent Federal flood insurance. My proposal would be to limit the FFI payoff per property to the median sale price of housing in the U.S. That way FFI could continue to benefit people in Appalachia who live in areas vulnerable to flooding because they can’t afford to live somewhere else, but it wouldn’t subsidize ritzy waterfront property that most Americans couldn’t dream of affording.
At any rate, the real long-term danger to Florida (which Georgia won’t be exempt from) is the increase in heat and humidity. The peninsula may well become all but unlivable by 2050, even where it’s 100+ feet above sea level.
MomSense
@Baud:
I’m feeling a lot better. No more fever and the sore throat is much better. Just dealing with the constant coughing and fatigue now. Everyone go get your bivalent boosters!!! Omicron is no joke.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Always be closing.
Chief Oshkosh
@lowtechcyclist: I guess it’s moot for me to point out that I had just started my first cuppa?
lowtechcyclist
@hueyplong:
“It’s deep water, that’s why a duck.”
Dorothy A. Winsor
@OzarkHillbilly: I hope you plan to take a nap today, Gramps.
Betty Cracker
@MomSense: You’re right. One lesson the state did learn after the four hurricanes in 2004 is that a lot of folks didn’t go to shelters because they couldn’t bring their pets. So, the local emergency management teams set up pet-friendly shelters.
I’ve read that in Cuba, the government sends busses to areas in the path and collects everyone — no choice, you get on the damn bus. That sort of thing wouldn’t fly in the US because freedom, but maybe it would make sense to go to neighborhoods and offer to transport people to shelters.
Kay
@Geminid:
Gigantic new paved-over areas will make every flooding event worse though.
Shalimar
@Baud: Gaetz represents the western-most counties in the state. Basically everything west of Panana City Beach.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: 2018 was a midterm where Trump wasn’t literally on the ballot, so it served as sort of a referendum on him from normal people. Which raises the question of how this might be applicable to 2022, but now there are more troll-farm candidates actually running for Congress, so I wouldn’t draw hasty conclusions.
AliceBlue
Mrs. DeSantis looks like a rummage sale Melanie Trump.
Dorothy A. Winsor
My memory is hazy but the town where we lived in Iowa had a river running through it. The banks of the river were a flood zone, but there were old houses along there. After one flood (1996 or 7 maybe?), federal assistance consisted of cheaply buying the property out rather than rebuilding.
Shalimar
@Chief Oshkosh: They absolutely should have issued an evacuation order for Lee county and the rest of the south coast down to Naples on Sunday or early Monday. Even if it had stayed on course for St. Petersburg, the storm was headed northeast and it was massive. Storm surge in the southern counties was going to make staying in low lying coastal areas impossible.
Evacuation doesn’t have to be out of town. People would have had to go 400+ miles to get to somewhere safe. Just getting to a shelter inland on higher ground would be much better than staying in a flood plain.
Soprano2
This story, wow – talk about a little man baby with hurt feelings because he thinks a woman made him look bad. She quit, and he got fired after this tape came out. I would bet it’s not his first time, it’s just the first time he got caught.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
I never draw conclusions, hasty or otherwise.
Scout211
I am not sure if this has been posted here yet but guess who is representing Brett Favre now?
Eric Herschmann
Baud
@Scout211:
To be honest, while scummy, I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t do anything illegal.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Peter Schorsch, the editor/owner of Florida Politics, has
asomewhat checkered past. In 2006 Schorsch, then a campaign consultant, was charged with felonies concerning bounced checks and theft of campaign funds (he said he used.the money to cover losing bets on basketball games). He pleaded no contest and upon completion of probation and restitution Schorsch came out of the affair without a felony on his record.He started a political blog and eventualky acquired Florida Politics. Schorsch broke the story about the FBI search of Mar-a-Loco. A source phoned in a tip that morning, and once he confirmed it Schorsch put the story out on his Twitter account.
Citizen_X
What possible reason would Florida Repubs in Congress have for turning down the funding???
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Man, I hate to perpetuate stereotypes but… How often is it football players who have been shielded from the consequences of their own actions their whole lives?
I went to Syracuse at a time when the football team was absolutely rock-bottom terrible. But they still had a huge budget, first-class accommodations when they traveled, and protection from university authorities when they did terrible things. Which they did routinely.
zhena gogolia
@Soprano2: Wow, she does a lot better than I would have.
Geminid
@Kay: The road would not be “gigantic.” It’s footprint would be relatively small compared to the terrain it traversed. I don’t see how that would increase coastal flooding.
But I guess if such a road helped enable people to keep living on the coast it might be a bad thing.
zhena gogolia
@Scout211: Yeah, we all want to like Herschmann but it’s a mistake.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Baud: He may not have known it was welfare money but he knew it was something. Don’t we have text messages with Favre worrying that the public will be able to find out where the money came from?
And the governor worrying about the pesky auditors who might catch misappropriation of funds?
Geminid
@Citizen_X: They said the bill contained too much unrelated “pork.” I suspect the actual reason is that they are determined to vote against any and all Democratic initiatives. A policy of, “If we can’t rule no one can.”
Baud
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
It wouldn’t surprise me if a law was broken. It’s just that I don’t look at this situation and automatically assume a law was broken. It’s not obvious to me.
Baud
@Geminid:
One word: Hyperloop.
hueyplong
@Citizen_X: I think it was attached to a larger bill. The fact you had to ask means that our side is learning how to play the game.
Kay
@Geminid:
Ultimately I think the only people who can afford to live on barrier islands are wealthy people, because the type of slow-to-no-growth planning you have to do that would allow a barrier island to survive hurricanes makes the property hugely exclusive, so very expensive.
Sanibel Island has done “work with the natural inclination” of a barrier island planning, but by its nature it excludes middle class and upper middle people because it’s limited to 9000 lots. Barrier islands will be for people who can afford to get themselves evacuated, forego property insurance, pay cash rather than needing a 30 year mortgage, etc.
rikyrah
@MomSense:
You get better
rikyrah
TRUTH
Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) tweeted at 6:25 AM on Mon, Oct 03, 2022:
If Mitch McConnell won’t stand up against Trump for his own wife, why would any voter think he’d stand up for them?
(https://twitter.com/JoyceWhiteVance/status/1576896152246448128?t=wVuD0FkRDHX-w1zB9Ihb7Q&s=03)
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: Schorsch is super-plugged in around the state, which makes him worth reading if you’re a FL politics junky like me. I’ve never looked into his background and have no idea who he used to consult for, but I assumed it was moderate Republicans. Could be wrong about that.
I got exasperated with him sometime over the past couple of years when, after being rightly critical of how DeSantis was handling the pandemic, he tweeted garbage like “looks like DeSantis was right about the pandemic” while Floridians were dropping like flies.
This weekend, he got into a scrap with Pushaw and said something like “no need to explode your cheekbones over it,” after which she started howling about misogyny. You could look at it that way since it was obvious he was commenting on her cosmetic surgery, but I thought it was pretty rich coming from the “groomer” lady.
dww44
@Sanjeevs: What does this say about the voters themselves? That they like authoritarian, dictatorial, and ethically impaired leaders? I’m afraid that’s probably true.
RSA
Gaetz
This BS again. Florida is a
donorfreeloader state:The cited study estimates that this amounted to $51 billion more sent to Florida than the federal government received in taxes. That’s almost exactly three times what the U.S. has sent to Ukraine.
Ken
Sadly, my reaction was “you’ll have to be more specific”.
Geminid
@Kay: Houses on barrier islands are becoming affordable only for the rich. A big problem is that the mainland coast behind the islands was intensively deveveloped. Pictures of Coral City show a network of canals surrounding blocks of single family homes. It looks like the houses might have been built on dredged fill from the canals.
These homes were sold largely to out of staters as inexpensive housing. Locals knew they were placing large numbers of people on what was basically swampland, but there was a lot of money to be made so no one would stop the developments.
Denali
@Geminid,
When we traveled to south Myrtle Beach this spring, the 6 lane expressway was at a standstill for the last 15 miles. There was no storm; people were just out shopping. There are just too many people in these areas subject to storms for safe evacuations.
We live in dangerous times.
Ken
It would describe my first choice for a leader. At least, if I imagine myself as a member of a 30-person paleolithic band, surrounded by other bands led by such people.
This should not be taken as an endorsement of the paleo social structure, and definitely not of the paleo diet.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Baud: They weren’t, as I recall they had applied for asylum. And were released into the community to await the decision(s) on their asylum requests.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ken:
Pretty sure it’s one of the very few epithets that’s explicitly banned on Balloon Juice.
MomSense
@Betty Cracker:
I can’t believe I forgot pets!
I still think that if they can spend 12 million or whatever ridiculous amount it was to traffic fewer than 100 people thousands of miles and over multiple states they could have figured out how to transport people in Fort Myers to safety in the same state.
MomSense
@SiubhanDuinne:
Aah, the dreaded Citizens United Never Timid curse.
Kay
@Geminid:
Right. But it’s not really sustainable for middle class people. If you’re going to build or buy on a filled-in swamp you have to be able to afford to lose the house. I don’t blame them for not having an extra 5000 sitting around to spend on a months-long evacuation/relocation if they make/receive 1200 a month but they are going to get hurt over and over again because they can’t really afford to live there.
Geminid
@RSA: The disparity in taxes paid and money received is one argument lawmakers from states like New Jersey and California make for a higher SALT deduction. Even if the deduction was much higher, they say, these states would still pay in to the federal government much more than they get back.
Republicans knew this when they capped the SALT deduction in 2017. They paid lip service to principles of equity, but their intent was to punish blue state voters, and to boost tax-cutting Republican candidates for state and local offices.
rikyrah
@Baud:
The money was for WELFARE
It was spent on a phucking stadium while actual NEEDY PEOPLE WERE REJECTED.
Betty Cracker
@MomSense: Agree with you there, and hopefully that comes back to bite DeSantis on the ass really hard. The recent polls aren’t encouraging, but who knows?
More broadly on hurricane evacuation, it’s really tough to know what to do sometimes. We’ve evacuated the coast directly into the actual inland path one time, which makes a person gun shy. I know several people that’s happened to twice.
Most people understand that barrier islands are unsafe in a direct hit, but I recall times when forecasters weren’t even sure which coast would be hit at first. You’re safer inland for sure because of the storm surge, but it’s no guarantee of safety either with flooding, hurricane-generated tornados, etc.
The snowbirds have the right idea maybe.
rikyrah
@Geminid:
Democrats need to reverse the SALT cap.
Baud
Can’t pull, but Trump has filed his opposition to DOJ’s motion for expedition of the 11th Circuit appeal.
Baud
@rikyrah: Favre didn’t spend that money. The state did.
Geminid
@Kay: I think that many of those houses on low lying land will not be rebuilt. A lot of the owners did not have flood insurance, and we’ve yet to find out how many of them perished. The confirmed death toll from Ian was 84, but it will rise, maybe by a lot.
One question is, will more such developments be allowed?
Chris Johnson
And storms continuing to get more unsurvivable. They’re so predictably in the path of hurricanes, and those are only going to get more incomprehensibly bad. Stuff that will survive shards of glass flying at 150 mph will not survive semi trucks and giant chunks of concrete flying at 180 mph.
SiubhanDuinne
@MomSense:
That’s the one.
ETA: 💯❗️
Chris Johnson
@Geminid: It was a Ukraine bill, and they support Russia. Of course they voted against it.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Geminid: It’s worse than that though, and the same problem exists in New Jersey and some other places here in New England. And California, or any state with a coast.
Barrier islands are basically sandbars. They also help protect the coast from storms, somewhat. Building on them is inherently stupid. Building on them and expecting “the government” to build million dollar seawalls to protect their sand bar from the ocean is a bad idea. And eventually the insurance companies (if they are smart) are not going insure places that are doomed to keep being destroyed. I remember living in San Diego, there is a neighborhood that was built mostly on the edge of sand stone cliffs. Sand stone cliffs facing the ocean erode. I recall people buying these beautiful houses from the original owners having to sign something saying they understood the risk. Fast forward a couple decades and a lot of California is eroding into the sea. I don’t know what the answer is but I do know you can’t stop the ocean. Not permanently. And when we try it we run into the Law of Unintended Consequences…
Vulnerable Barrier islands
The California coast is disappearing
A Ghost to Most
SeaFloorida is full of bipedal reptiles.
Scout211
@Baud: Could he be charged with conspiracy to commit fraud along with the government authorities? It was clear in the messages that he was aware of the misuse of government funds.
Cacti
I’m fine with Florida Repukes getting exactly what they voted for.
My sympathy is with those who didn’t vote for them.
Soprano2
@Geminid: Will people who try to do such developments be able to get insurance? If they can’t it will be hard to do the development.
ARoomWithAMoose
The “don’t build in vulnerable areas” critique is a bit more complicated for some of these coastal areas in Florida. The local government may be looking at tax base booming if construction is allowed, especially with Florida taxes being limited to sales tax and property tax (no state income tax). The capped max yearly property tax increase on each property, makes it very regressive, except for NEW construction of already highly valued property.
Geminid
@rikyrah: Some of New Jersey’s Democratic Reps were making noises about witholding support for the bill eventually passed as the Inflation Reduction Act if it did not include SALT relief, but they folded and started a House SALT Caucus* instead. They may try to get some relief through in the lame duck session.
Many of the 40 House districts Democrats flipped in 2018 were in relatively affluent suburbs all across the country, including two in New Jersey and six in Southern California. I’ve wondered if the curtailment of the SALT deduction cost Republicans many votes in these districts.
*Besides the “ideological” Progressive, New Democrat, and Blue Dog Caucuses, the House has a number of interest caucuses. One of my favorites is the Cranberry Caucus.
Kay
@Geminid:
What Sanibel did was remove themselves from county government so they could restrict development – you can’t build anything at all on 70% of the island- it’s protected- but I don’t think current GOP governance in Florida would allow that kind of end run around a state government committed to endless, unregulated growth.
I think you would run into a kind of populist revolt, too. If there are no middle class people in these areas, if they’re restricted to only wealthy people and ordinary people can’t even use them because it’s all private property no one is going to want to bail them out when they get demolished. The idea of “Florida” needs middle class people- it’s key to the sales pitch.
Geminid
@ARoomWithAMoose: Also, the construction and real estate businesses are powerful entities that know how to lobby both legally and, I assume, through outright bribery.
Baud
@Scout211: It’s possible. You’d have to show criminal intent. Farve could claim is concerns was about PR rather than about criminal exposure.
Baud
@Geminid: I appreciate the fact they were team players, same with the lefties who were probably unhappy with parts of the IRA.
twbrandt (formerly tom)
@Soprano2: Faust graced the airwaves here in the Detroit area before departing for St. Louis. I don’t recall if he had any problems here, but I would not be surprised if he did.
gvg
@Baud: They weren’t as reported. they also weren’t in Florida so I don’t see how the use of funds can be legal.
Florida also has some pretty strict open records laws and bid laws for contracts because of a past period of corruption and the voter reactions (1950’s I think) called the government sunshine laws. Those have ended up catching quite a few prior crooked Florida politicians and I have hopes they will this time too but it always takes awhile for it to get uncovered and reported widely enough.
Steeplejack
@Geminid:
To go where? If you look at a map of southern Florida—which I have been doing recently to get a feel for my recently relocated friend’s situation in Naples—you see that the middle of the state is basically empty. It’s the Everglades, the Big Cypress National Preserve and the occasional small town. Otherwise you’re moving people up and down the coast, where the danger is and where it’s hard to predict where the danger will be the worst.
Kay
If 14 year old boys were being denied medication for childhood arthritis and cancer (as is happening in Arizona) it would be one of the top stories on cable news and the NYTimes and WaPo
It’s girls and women so it’s completely ignored. Sexist, backward country and no where more than in media. Whoever makes editorial decisions in these outlets has simply decided not to cover the reprecussions of Dobbs at all. They invest nothing in it.
gvg
@lowtechcyclist: Basically the antiimmigration rabid types really don’t think any immigrants are legal. They don’t want them, therefore they don’t accept that there are actually laws and processes allowing it. That is why I think any legal immigrant who believes that the others should just follow the rules, and votes for these churls is risking their own status.
Baud
@Kay:
Also if old men were deprived of Viagara.
It’s up to decent people to care about ourselves. It’s clear no one else will do it for us.
ian
@Baud: They weren’t undocumented. If DeSantis did that stunt to undocumented people he would be in even more doodoo.
However the Florida fund that he took the money for was earmarked for getting the undocumented out of Florida (not Texas). So DeSantis targeted the wrong group of people in the wrong state. (Wrong as in not who the money was targeted for, I don’t think asylum seekers are ‘wrong’)
If Florida state reps cared about fiscal responsibility and small government they would be all over his ass for his gross misuse of the funds. However, they are spineless weasels.
Steeplejack
@Shalimar:
Good point. My friend in Naples lives five miles inland (Zone C). She got a lot of wind and rain but no real damage. Her power went out and is still out, but that was the worst of it.
Then the question becomes whether the local area has enough “shelter” capacity to accommodate all the people evacuating from Zone A.
Another Scott
@ARoomWithAMoose: Good points.
The tax base has huge ramifications (education funding levels and distribution, etc., etc.).
Monocultures are bad in lots of areas, including funding government. When some things are taxed and other things aren’t, it can cause huge distortions in investment, jobs, etc., etc.
Virginia has a state income tax, but the top bracket is 5.75% above $17,000. It’s ridiculous. Progressive income taxes should be the norm everywhere, and the top brackets should be high rates for high income.
When I’m elected Benevolent Despot, things are going to change!!
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
How many stories and editorials did the NYTimes and WaPo do on “cancel culture”? Thousands. They can’t spare a million dollars to actually pay people to cover the repercussions of banning abortion?
14 year old girls in the US now have no value outside their capacity to bear children. She’s being sacrificed for a potential pregnancy she may have sometime in the future.
Montanareddog
@OzarkHillbilly:
I wonder if the Hedge Fund managers will now be invoicing Kamikwazi Kwarteng for the cost of the Champagne at their “victory” party.? Actually, surely not, because even if, in the end, they did not get their 45% rate abolished:
I cannot see the notoriously amoral parliamentary Tory party, and the notoriously apathetic British electorate letting this egregious shitstorm slide. Even they have their limits
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
Yes. Just because a right-wing corporatist tool occasionally does something good doesn’t mean he’s not a right-wing corporatist tool.
Kay
Physicians should write the prescription in the name of a male family member.
Get it past the Morality Police who are apparently snooping into every medical exam and event in any woman or girls life, looking for reasons to punish us. This little girl will be punished with unnecessary pain from arthritis, because the Morality Police have decreed she must.
Amir Khalid
I just saw on my YouTube rec page a Deutsche Welle story about the divide, economic and otherwise, that persists in post-Cold War reunified Germany. Because it’s the 3rd of October, the 32nd anniversary of what is known there as der Tag der deutschen Einheit. It does shed some light on Germany’s often in-two-minds stance toward Russia.
Kay
If they denied my 14 year old pain meds because of their fundamentalist beliefs on the role of girls and women and their inability to mind their own fucking business I would have to devote the rest of my life to suing as many of them as I possibly could. Anyone I could conceivably name in a lawsuit is getting a summons. They’re going to be defending one year for each day she’s in pain. They wont have time to be snooping around in the shrubbery peering in windows or rooting around looking at our discarded prescription bottles- they’ll be busy making appearances in lawsuits, attending depositions, pretrials, conferences, just busy as could be.
Brit in Chicago
@RSA: I’ve sometimes wondered what would happen if someone proposed a bill (or, even better, a constitutional amendment) saying that no state could receive more from the Federal Government than its residents paid in taxes to the Federal Government. It would be a test of the stupidity of Republicans: how many would just assume that of course they would be better off if they did not have to send their tax dollars to the liberal enclaves? If nothing else, it would be interesting to see how less stupid Republicans contorted themselves to explain to their bretheren why they should oppose the bill.
cain
@ian:
It’s ok – as long as their people are getting the windfall. They see govt primary goal is to convert tax dollars into a windfall for their donors and companies – in Jesus’s name.
Matt McIrvin
@gvg: I’m old enough to remember Republicans insisting “we’re fine with LEGAL immigration,” but the Trump administration’s moves to cut legal immigration nearly to zero made it obvious how much difference that made. It’s a nice one-two punch: make immigration very close to being 100% illegal and then complain that immigrants are lawbreakers.
gvg
@Kay: Sanibel has a lot of hotels and condos. You go and stay for a few days or a week. There aren’t that many who live there. I think even the business owners commute over the causeway bridge which is now gone. It is not that expensive to stay unless its peak season. That is how the hotels afford it. Lots of visitors.
People also drive over for an early morning of shelling, best right after the tide goes out, especially after a storm. Not sure what will happen now.
Sanibel itself is TINY. Not many people could ever fit on it and because of that it doesn’t really matter. The population is in the costal cities. That is where you need to have policies. Actual coastal property is mostly commercial with a few pretty rich to super rich. The rest of us live near by or rent when we want to be on the beach. It hasn’t been a middle class thing for a long time but it doesn’t matter because we are so close we can have beach anytime we want.
gvg
@Steeplejack: Also if you declare an evacuation is one area that is the most likely to get hit, the roads are then full and you can’t expand the area to evacuate easily, especially if it’s an area south of the already leaving area, because first group is in the way of second group AND has less time to get to safety. That is what happened here, and I’ve seen it before. Hurricane forecasts just aren’t that good and this is what happens. Evacuation is not really the answer. Population is too big. We have to do selected evacuation but mostly build better shelter closer. Only the trailers and actual coastal areas should really be evacuating. The rest needs to be able to safely stay. We are working on that.
Shalimar
@rikyrah: To be slightly fair to the scumbag Favre, Mississippi apparently doesn’t actually have welfare and almost everyone there is aware of it. Instead, they pay for numerous programs that don’t actually benefit anyone who needs help, like Brett Favre giving motivational speeches.
trollhattan
@OzarkHillbilly: Oh Lord, I heard BBC interview the Chancellor of the Exchequer last night and his dissembling on why Liz said they’re definitely keeping the tax cut because reasons hours before, and then pulling the tax cut “after consulting with colleagues” was a thing to behold.
Lunatic with posh accent still a lunatic. Dunno how much longer the UK can survive the Tories.
trollhattan
@Amir Khalid: We hosted a German girl as part of a high school exchange program, and she knew blessedly little about reunification, the Wall, etc. Since she lives in the old West Germany her family’s lives were not uprooted like the Osties, but I found it interesting how little attention is paid to what were world-changing events back them.
Shalimar
@Steeplejack: Most local areas susceptible to hurricanes do not have enough adequate shelters for the people who should be using them. This is something we need to focus on, real shelters, not just using all the schools we can find. It isn’t cheap, but also isn’t even remotely as expensive as all the evacuation routes we are paying to expand.
Geminid
@Steeplejack: This is true. You’d have to add lanes to I-75 so more people could make the 90 miles to the outskirts of Miami, and also to Rts. 80 and 29 and make the most of the schools in the interior. Or settle for constructing new hurricane resistant buildings along the stretch of I-75 that runs ~7 miles in from the coast. That might give people protection from the worst of the storm surge. Short of depopulating Southwest Florida, enhancing infrastructure will be never be sufficient.
The limitations of infrastructure make it all the more important to issue timely evacuation orders. Lee County’s seems to have been 24 hours late, and some reports say that had the county followed its own emergency plan the order would have been issued earlier.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Kay: They really do think of Dobbs as a one-time event that’s over now. Dobbs is ongoing.
Soprano2
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I also think many of them had absolutely no idea how far-ranging the consequences of the decision would be. They had the simplistic idea “stop abortion, stop people killing babies, stop young women from having unapproved sex” and didn’t think any further than that. (Not talking about the activists, but the average anti-abortion person.)
geg6
@Kay:
I just can’t with this shit. It infuriates me so much.
As for Florida, I don’t know how or why anyone lives there. Especially now. I feel for those who can’t find a way out, but I don’t understand why anyone else with any means at all stays. Granted, beaches and tropical heat (let alone hurricanes and bugs and reptiles) are not my thing in any way. In fact, I actively avoid them. But the incompetence and the criminality and the cruelty of the majority of the people and the governments they install are a freaking nightmare I could not possibly tolerate.
We have tornadoes, blizzards and floods here to be sure, but I don’t see the same kind of the political/societal hellhole. Maybe I’m feeling too optimistic after seeing all the Dem signs around the county this weekend.
Kay
@Soprano2:
I think part of what religious fundamentalists have done is narrow the definition of girls and women so girls and women are ONLY a reproductive function. Women now have to justify why they might want to survive a pregnancy, even if the child does not. They have to come up with a reason they should remain alive outside of baby producing.
When I told me husband girls and women were being denied medication for arthritis and cancer and other diseases as a result of these laws he was genuinely confused- “what’s the connection?” – that’s because he doesn’t think of 14 year old girls only as potential baby producers. Only anti-abortion religious fanatics do that.
ARoomWithAMoose
Back to Perla H.: There’s going to be some digging there, discharged last month? From the reserves or active duty?
20 and done like that, especially with those resume key words, there’s plenty of very well compensated MIC contractor jobs here in Tampa for lifers (enlisted or commissioned) that just retired with clearances intact or easy to sponsor back in (think analyst like Adam or logistics or civilian contractor side paper pushers familiar with the military roles they are supporting), no need to skulk around with party hacks doing political dirty tricks. They need to see if Perla was already employed by such an employer, why is that shop doing political campaign work.
lowtechcyclist
@Scout211:
Gotta admit, my reaction on seeing his name was, “who the hell is this guy?” There are just too many people in too many plot threads in this timeline to possibly keep track of.
I Googled him, so now my recollection is refreshed, as the lawyers might say. (He’s the guy who had that great line in his 1/6 Committee testimony, testifying that he told Eastman he was going to need a really fucking great lawyer, but looking at his Wikipedia page, that quote sounds like a nice bit of reputation rehab more than an indication of who he really is.)
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Kay: But some people, especially those with a medically fragile child, don’t have the money for a lawyer or a lawsuit…
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@trollhattan: Agreed. Schools are interesting as evacuation centers here in coastal-ish Connecticut because back in the late 50s to early 60s when most of my towns schools were built they wanted to use the cheapest available open land in each neighborhood. Which just happened to usually be the land that had not been used for developments. The lowest spot in the neighborhood. Which means the part that floods first (our high school football field flooded every time it rained). Probably not where you want to evacuate to during a flooding/hurricane emergency…
Paul in KY
@Baud: Epically/cosmically bad
Kay
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone:
I think you could get someone good to take it.
Being involved in a lawsuit is horribly stressful – Giuliani is right now involved in TEN – it’s all he does- he moaning that he’s losing his mind and he probably is. We’re seeing that scumbag Alex Jones crack because his life is now about responding to lawsuits. Make them suffer like they’re making the 14 year old suffer. Make it so they can’t sleep at night worrying about the next pretrial or deposition or motion ruling. Hopefully it will get to the SCOTUS and the far Right religious nuts on that Court can show us all that they too believe the only value a 14 year old girl has is as a breeder. Have a trial.
oldgold
My state has lost a lot of people to Florida as a consequence of Florida not having a state income tax.
Florida should institute a state income tax to pay for part of this hurricane devastation.
Paul in KY
@Betty Cracker: I think it shows he’s a bit scared of his internal polling.
Paul in KY
@hueyplong: Problem, of course, is that all the property in the low lying areas is owned by people who are paying property tax on it. If, somehow, something was passed to restrict building in those areas, then compensation (I guess) would have to be provided to the people/businesses who won’t be allowed to build on the property anymore.
Geminid
@Paul in KY: Conservatives have a majority that will survive prospective by-election losses. They are not required to call a general election before January, 2025 (although Truss and others say they will in the summer of 2024). I guess they feel secure in the short term and medium term.
I noticed reports that Truss vetoed the King’s appearance at an upcoming international climate conference. That was not considered very exceptional, but reporters noted that the leaking of this news by Buckingham Palace was out of the ordinary.
Paul in KY
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: There’s texts from the ex-governor that spell it out for him.
Paul in KY
@Baud: Mis-appropriation of federal funds that can only be used for very specific purposes.
Paul in KY
@Kay: Years ago we camped in Fort Myers and then would just drive over the causeway & spend the day at Blind Pass. Certainly could not afford to rent on the island.
Paul in KY
@Ken: Think it rhymes with ‘itch’. What a dickweed. So glad it was taped & he was canned.
lowtechcyclist
@Kay:
I think it’s much simpler than that.
We’ve been vacationing on Anna Maria Island (on the Gulf Coast of Florida, just south of St. Pete) for the past dozen years or so. There are a lot of houses along the Tampa Bay side of the island that were built really close together, back when property on the island was cheap.
The old, small houses keep getting torn down, and getting replaced by the largest structure that can be fit in the allowable footprint for a house on that lot. So there’s no nice “work with the natural inclination” thing going on there. But those houses on tiny lots are going for well into seven figures anyway.
It’s really pretty simple: people love the idea of a beachfront home, but God ain’t making any more beachfront. Ever-increasing demand and a fixed supply. Boom.
lowtechcyclist
@ARoomWithAMoose:
Yeah, that’s pretty much why it would go over like a lead balloon. It’s the “great principle our political system is based upon.”
Gravenstone
@Baud: Two words: water table.
Not that this would dissuade the walking ego that is Musk.
Gravenstone
@rikyrah: Mitch doesn’t stand up for voters now. He stands exclusively for lobbyists and the monied interests they represent.
The Lodger
@zhena gogolia: Just think of Eric Herchmann as the right-wing Michael Avenatti.
rikyrah
@Kay:
I read stories everyday on this.
rikyrah
@Kay:
CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP
Paul in KY
@lowtechcyclist: Anna Maria Island is where I honeymooned with the wifey. Great, great place (if you love the ocean/beach). Didn’t leave the island till we were driving back to the KY.
Tony G
@lowtechcyclist: I have nothing against Barry Manilow. He’s a hard-working craftsman who produced a lot of really crummy music.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Ah, that explains why so many Florida voters vote Republican no matter how fucked up the Republican is; they are terrified the Democrats will tax them for the government services they expect.
Also explains Gratz weird ass comment too, His voters know they are mouchers and want excuses to justify it.
Geminid
@Paul in KY: That word is not banned here, just frowned upon by some. Another, worse word is banned.
karen marie
@ARoomWithAMoose: “was discharged” – what does this even mean? Did she voluntarily separate from service or was she fired/asked to separate?
How does a reporter not make clear under what circumstances she left the military. Seems like that’s an important bit of information. Also too what she’s been doing, who she’s been getting paid by since she “was discharged.”
karen marie
@ARoomWithAMoose: “was discharged” – what does this even mean? Did she voluntarily separate from service or was she fired/asked to separate?
How does a reporter not make clear under what circumstances she left the military. Seems like that’s an important bit of information. Also too what she’s been doing, who she’s been getting paid by since she “was discharged.”
Paul in KY
@karen marie: Be interesting to know how much time she had in when she ‘separated/was discharged’.