Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Trump should be leading, not lying.

I am pretty sure these ‘journalists’ were not always such a bootlicking sycophants.

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

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

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

A tremendous foreign policy asset… to all of our adversaries.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Keep the Immigrants and deport the fascists!

Find someone who loves you the way trump and maga love traitors.

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

You are here: Home / Climate Change / How about that weather? / Thursday Morning Open Thread: Florida, Man…

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Florida, Man…

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Praise be the Trickster God, Idalia (so far) seems to have been far less destructive in Florida than feared. Per the Washington Post, “In Florida, Idalia leaves a trail of destruction and a sense of relief”[unpaywalled gift link]:

… As Idalia churned northeast toward Georgia and the Carolinas on Wednesday, bringing with it hurricane-force winds and more fears of fatal flooding, communities across Florida’s Big Bend region were beginning to assess the storm’s damage.

Idalia cut an unpredictable path of destruction, rending some homes from their foundations while sparing others.

But as the storm moved on from Florida, residents and officials here were hopeful that they had avoided the deadliest, worst-case scenarios, releasing a cautious, statewide exhale nearly one year after Hurricane Ian caused catastrophic damage and claimed roughly 150 lives.

“This is ten times better than what I expected to come back to,” said Joe Brenner, standing outside of his intact home in the tiny coastal town of Keaton Beach, where Idalia made landfall…

At least two motorists died while driving on the region’s rain-sodden roads, authorities said. The storm’s toll may rise in the coming days, but state leaders said they haven’t yet seen the telltale indicators of a high death count…

Ergo, I consider myself permitted to share some storm-related snark…


[Yes, snark]

Reader Interactions

204Comments

  6. 6.

    lowtechcyclist

    Support of DeSantis is like 95% “I’m a reactionary but I’m also sick of not being accepted in polite society because of my reactionary views.”

    It doesn’t help them that they’re rarely polite in their manner of expressing those views.

    Of course, they have those views because they’re assholes, so it’s not surprising that they act like assholes.

  7. 7.

    OzarkHillbilly

    In 1676, a Black teenager named Ann Joice arrived on the shores of Maryland with hopes of a new life.

    She had traveled to the recently founded colony from England, destined for indentured servitude, and worked as a maid for the ruling Calvert family, who for three generations had presided over Maryland as a religious haven for Catholics fleeing persecution in England.

    Contracts of indenture then could lead to relative autonomy at their completion, but Joice had arrived at a perilous time in the fledgling colony’s history, as the formal legalization of slavery had already spread quickly along the Atlantic coast.

    Eventually, her contract – the only evidence of the agreement – was set aflame by a plantation owner and military officer named Henry Darnall. She was imprisoned in a kitchen cellar for about six months and then emerged as an enslaved woman, forced to work in Darnall’s kitchens.

    So begins the lineage of the Mahoney family – the enslaved descendants of Ann Joice – whose story is at the center of a vital new work of journalism examining the Catholic church’s foundation in America and its reliance on enslaved labor and the sale of enslaved people for institutional survival.

    Authored by the journalism professor and New York Times contributor Rachel L Swarns, The 272 is a meticulously researched work of narrative history and investigative journalism. The book traces the lineage of the Mahoney family, over centuries, from Joice’s arrival in Maryland to the enslavement of her descendants on plantations owned and operated by Jesuit priests, who became among the largest enslavers in the state. It examines in devastating detail the brutality experienced by those the Jesuits enslaved: a priest who sold a child born out of wedlock as punishment for the parents, a group of people exchanged for a horse and some cash, two of Joice’s descendants hanged and mutilated after being found guilty of killing a plantation overseer.

    Much more at the link, and the book is a “must buy” for me.

  8. 8.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @Lapassionara: Typos can be a bicth.

    (And is it just me, or has anyone else ever experienced a phenomenon while typing where one hand gets slightly out of sync with the other, resulting in one’s output turning into complete gibberish until one realizes, stops, and restarts more slowly?)

  13. 13.

    Betty Cracker

    I got Trump cabinet meeting flashbacks during a couple of the gov’s press conferences yesterday. When state officials took the mic to give their updates, they started with slobbering paeans to DeSaster’s bold, dynamic, visionary, steadfast, unparalleled, etc., leadership. I don’t remember them doing that after Hurricane Ian.

  16. 16.

    Jeffg166

    @lowtechcyclist: My impression is that their fantasy of what their life was going to be ran into reality of their life which they would not acknowledge. Their denial of reality keeps their fantasy afloat.

  18. 18.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Betty Cracker: To me, the sickening praise for Dear Leader is of a piece with Trump’s lies about his weight and his golf score. Normal people look at those and think there’s something wrong not just with the statement, but also with the need to say it.

  19. 19.

    Ken

    @Baud: DeSantis’s problem is that primary voters aren’t attracted to competence.

    But is he competent? I was under the impression his entire term as governor has been performative stunts setting up this run for president, and he (and Florida) have just been damn lucky they haven’t had another 2004 hurricane season.

  20. 20.

    Baud

    @Ken:

    BC would know better, but my understanding is that he understands how government works and how to use it. The fact that he also engages in performative stunts doesn’t take away from that.

  21. 21.

    RevRick

    @Baud: Hahahaha. DeSantis. Competence. Yeah, those are two words I would not put in one sentence referring to Dead Bounce Ron.

  25. 25.

    Jeffro

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: To me, the sickening praise for Dear Leader is of a piece with Trump’s lies about his weight and his golf score. Normal people look at those and think there’s something wrong not just with the statement, but also with the need to say it.

    Exactly!

    “Now get out there and tell everyone how totes awesome I was during this once in a millennium killer storm.  And don’t forget to add ‘of course, we knew this Governor would handle the hurricane with ease – just look at how he handled Covid!’  Got it?”

    what a bunch of weirdos!

    Btw Dorothy, based on your recommendation I read ‘Yellowface’ earlier this week and wow, good stuff!  I’ve got a few other books lined up to read next week, but I’ll be circling back to read ‘Babel’ before too long.  Thanks again!

  26. 26.

    Betty Cracker

    @RevRick: I think he’s pretty competent at getting the statehouse to do his bidding (even when it doesn’t serve their interests) and co-opting state agencies and institutions to advance his authoritarian agenda. But if you’re measuring competence by skill at serving the people of Florida, hell no, he’s not competent.

  28. 28.

    Betty Cracker

    @gators lunchmeat: Thanks! The river definitely rose a little, but since we’re in a hole due to a drought, it’s still beneath normal levels for this time of year. We’re too far upriver from the Gulf to get the tidal surges that caused rivers to overtop their banks closer to the shore — fortunate placement for this particular weather event for sure!

  29. 29.

    Dangerman

    No insurance? Damn, the State Government will have to step in. Probably have to radically raise taxes. That’s not going to look good for the Governor’s campaign (I’ve seen fish floating at the top of a tank that show more life then the Governors campaign but I digress).

  30. 30.

    Geminid

    No Labor Day off for Recip Tayyip Erdogan. The Turkish President will meet Putin Monday at the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi. Topics to be discussed include Black Sea grain shipments, Syria and Turkey’s gas bill.

    Not-so-fun Sochi fact: In 1866, after the Russian-Circassian War and resulting genocide, Russian sources say that the population of Sochi had dropped from 100,000 to 98.

  33. 33.

    Another Scott

    Biden made the point yesterday that lots of Florida wooden power poles were replaced with steel – with federal money – after a previous hurricane. Things like that probably made Florida more resilient. But doesn’t get much attention…

    Meanwhile, … Phys.org:

    Dr. Crockford spent time in rural areas in three states in the southern US—Arizona, Louisiana, and Missouri. She found denial, a political-media ecosystem funded by fossil fuel companies, and the influence of conservative white evangelicalism.

    Those who Dr. Crockford spoke to did care about erosion and storms and fire and flood and their homes and their livelihoods and their communities. They were aware of climate changes and impacts from extreme weather events. However, they understand these events through what they had personally experienced—which they saw as caused by natural and supernatural factors—rather than through climate science.

    Dr. Crockford said, “I found a lack of belief in climate change or action comes not from emotional reactions or information deficit but because people’s knowledge is insufficient for the scale of the problem faced. People could claim a sense of innocence by refusing to accept climate change.

    “Some people thought climate change was just a plot cooked up by the Democrats to force through socialist policies by inventing a phony crisis to solve. Those with religious faith thought what happened in nature could only be determined by God not affected by human activity.

    “Fewer people worked in the oil industry but it maintained its symbolic status. ‘People need power,’ I was told, ‘we gotta keep the lights on.’ This was said with a shrug, indicating a level of resignation over the loss of land and pollution from oil spills as the price to pay for the benefits that fossil fuels brought.”

    […]

    On the subject of erosion, however, James was clear-sighted: “The erosion’s killing us,” he told Dr. Crockford, reflecting on the changes he had seen in his lifetime: “I saw the environment change from a young age to what it is now … all the places I used to fish are no longer there, it’s just open water.”

    Dr. Crockford said, “In Louisiana people interviewed had an acute awareness of the fragility of the land they lived on and the risks to their way of life that they could observe and experience personally. However, their own direct observation and personal experience was prior to, and more important than, the computational models and numerical abstractions—’the graphs’—of climate science. Climate changes such as erosion and oil spills could be seen, whereas sea level rise could not.”

    Ethnos – Journal of Anthropology

    As always, political and policy messages have to be customized to the local circumstances and local voters. Biden is very, very good at that and people should pay attention to him and his approach.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  34. 34.

    Suzanne

    Hurricane Idalia causes 100-year-old oak tree to split, fall on Gov. DeSantis’ mansion

    OH LOOK, A METAPHOR!

    So “unpredictable” is spot on. My cousin and his wife, who live full-time on St. George Island, evacuated on Tuesday. They were monitoring their house remotely, and he said they never even lost power or internet out there. No damage at all. They went back yesterday and helped neighbors, some of whom were not so lucky.

  42. 42.

    Kosh III

    Re: ” Jesuit priests, who became among the largest enslavers in the state.”

    The largest slave owner in Middle Tennessee was Bishop Leonidas Polk, a cousin of President Polk.  Polk was a West Point graduate who became an Missionary Episcopal priest and later a Bishop. He owned(by some reports) over 1000 slaves.
    At the start of the Southern War of Treason, he was appointed Major-General in the Confederacy Army and died in battle.

  44. 44.

    Soprano2

    Good morning everyone. It looks like we’re going to have nice weather for the Labor Day weekend – highs in the mid to upper 80’s, lows in the 60’s. All the businesses at the lakes will be extremely happy. I always feel sad at this time of year, close to the end of summer, because I love the warm weather. It was nice yesterday – low 80’s, relatively low humidity, and I thought “I could live like this all the time, who needs it to be freezing weather?”. I dread the return of winter.

    On that note, I found out yesterday that as usual anything with our house is harder than it needs to be. I had an HVAC guy come out to quote me a price on a new furnace. He said “You’re going to have to have someone get the old furnace out of here, they might have to use a blow torch because it definitely won’t fit up the stairs and through the door”. So now I have to get that done, plus having someone paint all the asbestos that’s on the furnace ducting. *sigh* It’s always something, isn’t it? Maybe someone can just take the furnace apart and get it out a piece at a time. The HVAC man gave me contact info on the handyman he uses to do small stuff for him, so I guess I’ll call that guy today. I also need some other stuff done, so maybe I can kill two birds with one stone.

    I read that story about “Atlanta” magazine. Doesn’t McGinnis realize that using the wrong pronouns for someone is also “taking a side”? I go with calling people what they want to be called, it’s only polite. Why do people insist on being assholes? I find it interesting that he’s wanting to rein in a lot of stories solely based on his and the owner’s feelings, rather than any actual reader feedback. I get the distinct impression that the only people who are upset about those things in the magazine are him and the owners, but the actual readers are fine with it.

  45. 45.

    Chris

    @Jeffg166:

    Seconding Baud’s response.

    Nobody’s life turns out exactly like they’d hoped.  Most of us have at least a few reasons to be disappointed about that.  We just don’t react by blaming it all on black people, gay people, Muslim people, and any people who’ve ever tried to make life even a little bit better for somebody else.

  46. 46.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: I think Badger would sit still like that. Pete would try to climb on the paddler’s head and capsize the board.

  47. 47.

    Shalimar

    @Baud: DeSantis understands how government works when he wants to use it for revenge against people who have crossed him.  He understands propaganda.  He understands how to fill appointed positions with cronies.  And he understands how to use fear to control Republican legislators.

    None of those things are competent governance.

  48. 48.

    Doug R

    @eclare: Those concert movies if well done are good for marginal fans who won’t spend hundreds of $ to camp out and watch a huge star live, but will spend $20 apiece to watch a concert filmed well.

    Took my daughter to the 3D U2 IMAX film a few years back-she and I digged it.

  49. 49.

    Ken

    @sab: It’s just in a world where we put microchips in greeting cards and toasters, I’d expect a little more intelligence in sprinkler systems, perhaps a sensor for soil moisture.

  50. 50.

    Chris

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    So begins the lineage of the Mahoney family – the enslaved descendants of Ann Joice – whose story is at the center of a vital new work of journalism examining the Catholic church’s foundation in America and its reliance on enslaved labor and the sale of enslaved people for institutional survival.

    I’ll never forget the priest at my alma mater who once tried to tell me that if the thirteen colonies had been founded by us instead of the Protestants, slavery would have ended a lot sooner.

    (You know, like it did in Cuba and Brazil and…  I’ll come in again).

  51. 51.

    geg6

    @eclare:

    Thanks for the tip.  I just shared this with my Barbie companions, my niece and sister.  We’ll surely be there, too.

  52. 52.

    eclare

    @Doug R:

    Fingers crossed Beyonce comes out with one too.  Neither tour came to Memphis, our arena isn’t big enough.  Not that I could afford to go anyway!

  55. 55.

    Betty Cracker

    @Suzanne: That’s amazing! I’ve stayed on St. George Island a time or two and always assumed it would be swallowed by the Gulf if a hurricane even brushed it — it’s such a narrow, vulnerable spit of sand. I’m happy for them!

  57. 57.

    sab

    @Ken: Shows how old I am. When I was a kid in Florida in the 1960s our sprinklers ran through every hurricane because it was such a pain to shut them off. But that was 1960s technology when computers ran on punch cards and our sprinklers ran on a clock with gears.

  59. 59.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @OzarkHillbilly: At this point it’s beginning to feel like pretty much EVERY American Institution has a story like this in its’ past.  But of course, acknowledging that would be evil CRT or something…

  62. 62.

    eclare

    @sab:

    Yeah I read the average Swiftie spent $1300 to attend her concert, including the ticket, travel, merchandise, etc.

  67. 67.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @eclare: Beyonce has had an awful lot of cameras on stage for her shows, so I’m guessing that might be the case.  Also, the show (like the Coachella show, captured in Homecoming) seems custom made for a video release.

    As I said yesterday, there are some really good, HD vids of full shows from the Renaissance tour, on YouTube.  Definitely worth it if you have HD tv with a fairly big screen.  Looks like a truly amazing concert.

  68. 68.

    Geminid

    @Kosh III: “How saucy they are!” General Sherman exclaimed when he saw Bishop Polk and other Confederates surveying the Union lines near Kennesaw Mountain.

    They were too saucy. Soon after, a Union artillerist cut the incautious Polk almost in half with a well-aimed shot.

  69. 69.

    Sandia Blanca

    OT, check out the article in today’s Washington Post about George Santos/Anthony Devolder. Hilarious and infuriating both.

  71. 71.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Yesterday I started going down the rabbit-hole of the Genocide of Native/Indigenous People in CA. It’s really mind-blowing how much terrible shit this country has done.  This book on the subject, looks pretty good:

    Between 1846 and 1873, California’s Indian population plunged from perhaps 150,000 to 30,000. Benjamin Madley is the first historian to uncover the full extent of the slaughter, the involvement of state and federal officials, the taxpayer dollars that supported the violence, indigenous resistance, who did the killing, and why the killings ended. This deeply researched book is a comprehensive and chilling history of an American genocide.

    Madley describes pre-contact California and precursors to the genocide before explaining how the Gold Rush stirred vigilante violence against California Indians. He narrates the rise of a state-sanctioned killing machine and the broad societal, judicial, and political support for genocide. Many participated: vigilantes, volunteer state militiamen, U.S. Army soldiers, U.S. congressmen, California governors, and others. The state and federal governments spent at least $1,700,000 on campaigns against California Indians. Besides evaluating government officials’ culpability, Madley considers why the slaughter constituted genocide and how other possible genocides within and beyond the Americas might be investigated using the methods presented in this groundbreaking book.

  72. 72.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Betty Cracker: My eldest granddaughter has superglue bonded with my sons Aussie, Rudy. If we do a day float on the river she brings her paddle board and Rudy and he is her constant companion sitting on the paddle board with her. Normally he is as hyper active as any other Aussie but he just sits there with her, very calmly taking it all in.

  73. 73.

    eclare

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    I have a smart dvr, but not a smart TV, so I’m not sure I can get it on my tv.  And no way am I watching Beyonce on a computer screen.

    Homecoming was amazing.

  74. 74.

    lowtechcyclist

    @eclare: Holy crap!  I haven’t attended any concerts since we adopted the kiddo back in 2009, but the last one I went to was Dylan and Elvis Costello at Meriwether Post Pavilion somewhere around 2007 or 2008.  Tickets were still in the double digits, and the only other expense was gas to get us there and back from Calvert County.

  76. 76.

    Ocotillo

    @Ken:  Actually there are gizmos that hook up the sprinkler system, a sort of rain gauge thing, and if it senses water in the gauge, the system does not water that cycle.

  79. 79.

    geg6

    @lowtechcyclist: ​
     

    I know my niece paid big bucks to see Swift here in the ‘Burgh. I think the tickets were about $500 each, but they were pretty good seats in a big stadium. And then she easily spent another $300-400 on just the right outfit to wear, dinner out with her friend who went with her, parking, bracelets (di rigueur) and merch.

    Several weeks later, she and I went to see Ed Sheeran at the same venue and with another sold out crowd, but we only paid $39 for our tickets at the top of the stadium. We were more interested in his music than in actually get a close up view. But interestingly enough, his stage was amazing and they had plenty of screens around to catch the action close up. I enjoyed it very much.

  80. 80.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Assuming Donald Trump clinches the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, it would be unfair for any court dates associated with the former president’s pending criminal charges to “compromise [his] ability to have a robust campaign schedule”, the Democratic US congressman Ro Khanna has said.

    I have a lot I would like to say to Mr Khanna, but I am sure plenty others will chime in so I’ll just leave it at maybe the GOP shouldn’t nominate an ongoing criminal enterprise as their candidate and if they choose to it’s their own damned fault.

  81. 81.

    CaseyL

    @Soprano2: ​

    I always feel sad at this time of year, close to the end of summer, because I love the warm weather.

    And here I am at the opposite side of that spectrum, feeling relieved that summer is ending, and reveling in the return of cooler, cloudier weather :)

    My perfect weather is mid-60s to mid-70s. I enjoy sunshine, as long as the sun is presiding over cool-to-warm temperatures. Anything hotter than that, much less in the upper 80s and above, makes me miserable.

  83. 83.

    geg6

    @CaseyL: ​
     
    Come sit by me. 65-78 degrees is my jam. And sun, if possible.

    It’s supposed to be in the 90-100 degree range starting Sunday and going through next week. I dread it. The last two days have been a lovely preview of my favorite season and it sucks that I’m going to have to suffer through at least another week of miserable heat. I hate it.

  85. 85.

    eclare

    @CaseyL:

    I’m ok up to about 90, and luckily the highest in our seven day forecast is 92.  But my attitude when summer starts to end is “thank dog, I endured another one.”

  86. 86.

    Chris

    @catclub:

    “You call that a clip?  THIS is a clip!”
    “That’s not a clip!  It’s a magazine!”
    “All right, all right.  I see you’ve played clippy-magazinny before.”

  87. 87.

    Tony Jay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Assuming Donald Trump clinches the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, it would be unfair for any court dates associated with the former president’s pending criminal charges to “compromise [his] ability to have a robust campaign schedule”, the Democratic US congressman Ro Khanna has said.

    “And just like the overwhelming majority of Americans, I am perfectly fine with that. FAFO fo’ sho’, ho ho ho,” continued the congressman, after taking note of the disapproving expressions on the faces of absolutely everyone not holding a microphone or wearing a red cap.

  91. 91.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @eclare: This is the thing that makes a smart tv worth the $.  You can just airplay YouTube videos from your computer and most times the picture will be pretty great even scaling to a decent size tv screen.

  93. 93.

    Geminid

    @geg6: Glibertarian venture capitalist David Sacks hosted a Silicon Valley fundraiser for Rep. Khanna a couple months ago. It looks like Sacks is getting a good return on his investment.

  95. 95.

    Betty Cracker

    @geg6: He seems like a compulsive contrarian. Wherever the party consensus is, he stakes out a different position, even if it’s illogical and ideologically inconsistent.

  96. 96.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Omnes Omnibus: Exactly. They have what, 18 others to choose from? and instead they go with the one most likely to spend the rest of his life in SuperMax? Only the best people…

  97. 97.

    sdhays

    @Another Scott: Those with religious faith thought what happened in nature could only be determined by God not affected by human activity.

    Oh, yeah. Blame it on God. How fucking convenient. WTF is human activity if not changing the environment around us? That’s just their excuse for not wanting to deal with anything.

  98. 98.

    Chris

    @sdhays:

    My Christianity is mostly a lapsed matter at this point, but it saddens me somehow how many Christians have apparently made it through all those years of church without ever hearing the “God sent you a car, a boat, a helicopter” parable.

  99. 99.

    Kay

    One-time Republican gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon said former President Donald Trump told her to change her messaging on abortion during her 2022 campaign, but was too late, she said on her podcast Wednesday.
    “You came to me and you said, ‘you’ve got to talk differently about abortion.’ And we could not pivot, we could not pivot in time,” Dixon said. “You were absolutely right, sir.”

    Lol. Anti abortion people. So incredibly principled.

    It was too late for her to “pivot” and start lying about her position. Can’t trust them as far as you can throw them.

  100. 100.

    Tony Jay

    @Geminid:

    There will always be politicians who see themselves as the uncrowned kings of Centristia, that fairytale land where mules lie down with elephants and every night is a festival of good-natured togetherness.

    It’s the delusion that makes the silly happen.

  101. 101.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: Last October, when the ill-advised, ill-timed letter about negotiating an end to the ear in Ukraine was released, most of the 30 Reps who “signed” it were blindsided. Khanna knew about it though, and was on TV defending the proposal even after Progressive Caicus Chair Jayapal had renounced it.

    I can see why Democrats swept that sorry affair under the rug, but I still wish some enterprising journalist would get to the bottom of the matter.

  102. 102.

    OzarkHillbilly

    First hurricanes, now wildfire: Louisiana parish takes on a new climate disaster

    “I am tired, all of our people are exhausted,” she said. “But let me tell you something. We won’t stop. We have lost homes, but we have not lost any lives.”

    Like other residents speaking to the Guardian from this heavily Republican region, Bailey was reluctant to draw a link between the disaster and the climate crisis.

    “I don’t feel like in my position I’m qualified to answer those questions,” she said.

    I get the impression that she gets it, she really does but she is afraid to say as much because of the shunning that will surely follow any heresy.

  104. 104.

    WhatsMyNym

    @eclare:  You better off using the cheapest Roku than any Smart TV.  The TV won’t have as much memory, and they will not update the software as often, if at all.  Cheaper to buy a newer Roku every few years than high end TV.

  105. 105.

    RaflW

    “This Administration will continue to work closely with first responders and local officials as the storm progresses.” Yes, that is a dig against Ron. Well done, as usual by the WH social media team!

    The previous sentence in the Xeet won’t stop dime-store dimwits like Katy Tur from asking “Why weren’t you ready for the storm?” because they think it looks tough to ask inane questions that were answered before they drew breath.

  107. 107.

    RaflW

    @eclare: A Chromecast 4K costs 69 bucks. No need to buy a new TV if you have an HDMI port free. We’re pretty low tech here so I’m still fine with the old twenty nine dollar ‘Cast that I have that runs 1080p.

  108. 108.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: I guess I shouldn’t be so amazed at how openly cynical they are. It’s so 2015! ;-)

    From the linked article:

    Trump told Dixon there’s a way to deftly handle abortion that avoided the pitfalls she fell into. Trump has not offered a specific stance on abortion and has not said whether he’d back a national ban on abortion.

    “It didn’t happen to me because there’s a way of talking about it,” Trump said. “I think exceptions are very important, I think you need the exceptions, you and I talked about that.”

    I remember when he accidentally told the truth on this issue in 2016 when applying “pro life” rhetoric to its logical yet unscripted conclusion: “You have to punish the women.” They walked that back in a hurry! I guess that’s why he’s the expert now.

  111. 111.

    Jeffro

    @Kay: the thought of calling trump “sir”…I mean, gag me

    I’d love to hear more about this magical ‘pivot’ from more GOP candidates.  Let us hear from you, Republicans!  Tell us allllllll about your ‘pivot’

  112. 112.

    SiubhanDuinne

    According to a WaPo “breaking news” banner, Clarence Thomas has filed a financial disclosure stating that he travelled on Harlan Crow’s private plane last year “out of security concerns” after the Dobbs decision.

    What a craven tool he is.

  114. 114.

    Tony G

    DeSantis attacked by one of the Screaming Trees.  Time to burn down all of those woke trees.

  118. 118.

    Betty

    Way off the current subject, but I just saw two bizarre articles on Google news. One says Russia is claiming that a NATO country is trying to assassinate Zelenskyi. The other one from the Times of Israel says Zelenskyi is sending Ukrainians to die as revenge for pogroms. What’s going on?

  120. 120.

    Chris

    @schrodingers_cat:

    While I understand the logic behind it, there’s still something spectacular about the extent to which fascists of all racial and religious backgrounds are increasingly happy to come together if it means wrecking liberal democracy.

  121. 121.

    StringOnAStick

    @Ken: I swear, half of why people waste so much water via yard irrigation is because they have “dumb” sprinkler controllers that are too hard to adjust without trashing the program their lawn service set, and too hard to restore or program.  When we redid our valves, we added a smart controller that I can program easily from my PC or phone, and since I can do everything needed in any drip system between the valves and the garden beds, the set up I created in my veggie garden is the most hassle free watering system I’ve ever had.  All I do is monitor the plants, fertilize, and pick veggies.

  122. 122.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @RaflW:

    The previous sentence in the Xeet won’t stop dime-store dimwits like Katy Tur from asking “Why weren’t you ready for the storm?”

    In this case, the Biden administration has a good answer…DeSantis turned down hundreds of millions of federal funding for climate mitigation and clean energy investment. “Too woke, I guess,” Biden quipped.

  123. 123.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @Tony Jay: There will always be politicians who see themselves as the uncrowned kings of Centristia, that fairytale land…

    At this point, though, willful blindness is an understatement. David Broder is dead, Mitch McConnell has frozen up and Trump is openly calling for retribution. Can anyone still think “oh, it’s just talk, what’s the harm”?

  126. 126.

    smith

    @Betty: It looks like a typical Russian misinformation operation to me. They are masters at planting stories that gullible or complicit news organizations pick up and run with, no questions asked. Adam Silverman has been talking about this for years.

  128. 128.

    Betty

    @Betty: It turns out both stories originated with the Russians. The NATO country referred to is the UK. Not sure why The Times of Israel thought they repeat the story.

  129. 129.

    Geminid

    @Josie: Everyone involved seemed to have kept their mouths shut afterwards. That was neccesary at the time I thought, considering that the letter was released just a couple of weeks before the midterms and could have blown up into a distraction.

    I noticed at the time that many of the signers expressed surprise and distanced themselves. One Rep said the last she saw was a draft circulated at the end of June. Progressive Caucus staff were ready and mounted a campaign for the proposal on their website and Twitter account. Yet only 30 out of 90+ Caucus members’ names were on the letter.

    At first, Rep. Jayapal got behind the letter, but by evening Jayapal was talking like someone had pressed the wrong button and released the letter by mistake. It was a discreditable performance for sure. Khanna was still defending the letter that night.

  131. 131.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Betty:

    Way off the current subject, but I just saw two bizarre articles on Google news. One says Russia is claiming that a NATO country is trying to assassinate Zelenskyi. The other one from the Times of Israel says Zelenskyi is sending Ukrainians to die as revenge for pogroms. What’s going on?

    I don’t know about the Times of Israel, but Russia claims all sorts of crazy shit every day; their claims shouldn’t qualify as news.  See twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews.

  134. 134.

    Kent

    @OzarkHillbilly: It would actually be POLITICIZING the criminal justice system if we adjusted legal proceedings out of political considerations.

    That is the point these craven lackeys don’t get.  Or refuse to acknowledge.

  135. 135.

    StringOnAStick

    @CaseyL: I want cooler weather and rain, so the fires that are giving us air of 150 to 300 will be better controlled. Obviously only winter is going to stop them.

  137. 137.

    smith

    @Betty: The question is, if we in the peanut gallery can readily recognize stories like this for what they are, why can’t the editors who choose to run them? Neither of the ones you cite pass the laugh test — they sound like something your crackpot uncle might post on Face Book.

  138. 138.

    Alison Rose

    @OzarkHillbilly: An understandable urge.

    But like…sure, maybe he had some valid concerns after taking away the right to bodily autonomy from roughly half the population, but I seriously doubt “a creepy billionaire’s private jet” was the only solution there.

  139. 139.

    Geminid

    @lowtechcyclist: The Times of Israel decided that an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory promoted by a prominent  Russian news site was a story that needed to be reported and debunked, which is what their article did. They’re pretty sensitive about such stories.

  140. 140.

    Heidi Mom

    @geg6: Agreed.  Most people seem to think that August is the “summeriest” month, but I think it’s July.  August brings some days like this — currently 74 degrees with low humidity — to south-central PA, and it gives us hope.

  141. 141.

    piratedan

    @SiubhanDuinne: after making 52% of the country no longer primary owners of their own bodily autonomy, he was afraid that some of them wimmin’ folk might get “uppity”.

  142. 142.

    Paul in KY

    @Soprano2: Can’t the old furnace be disassembled somehow? It must be screwed together in places (I would think).

    Maybe that would cost more money…

  143. 143.

    artem1s

    slightly off topic… got this today from Tim Ryan – you know the guy who couldn’t beat Vance, mostly because he spent every dollar trying to lure WWC retirees ample butts off their diner stools and into voting for WWC, gliberaria, both-siderism lite when those guys were obviously going to throw their weigh behind whomever let inmate # P01135809 take the biggest taste of his campaign war chest.

    TLDR: We The People is not a political campaign…

    We want to promote the good ideas getting drowned out by the current political conversation — ideas like medicinal innovations for veteran trauma and how we can re-energize small towns across the country with manufacturing.
    We spend billions of dollars on political campaigns in this country. Staff, volunteers, TV ads — all of that. And then when the campaign is over everything washes away like a sand castle on the beach hit by a wave.
    In order to get different results we need different strategies. We plan on being around for the long haul. And to do that, we need people on the ground — everywhere. We want to put a WTP representative in all 3,142 counties in the nation.
    We’re going to reach people through compelling ideas, videos, and highlighting ordinary people doing extraordinary things.Your contributions support all of that.
    Soif you can contribute a few dollars, I want you to know that your money is going toward something different — something big, something ambitious, and something built to last. 

    Exactly how is this not a political campaign? Exactly what political conversation is he referring to and how is any of that the DNC or the DCCC fault? Sounds a lot like he wants to take money out of urban Democratic strongholds and waste it chasing ‘independents’ and ‘green party’ wannabees like RFK. No way am I giving money to the guy who challenged Nance Smash for the speaker ship and blew a god given opportunity to take back Rob Portman’s Senate seat. I’m really starting to hate this guy and the other fundraising scams going on in Ohio right now promising they can turn Ohio blue again – by taking money out of the party’s hands?

  144. 144.

    wjca

    @RevRick: You can easily put “DeSantis” and “competence” in the same sentence.  You just need to link them with “utter lack of”

  145. 145.

    Low Key Swagger

    May have already been said, but the fact that this storm moved fast was a blessing.  Sitting still dumping rain is a worst case scenario.

  146. 146.

    Soprano2

    @SiubhanDuinne:  “out of security concerns”

    Translation – “I was afraid people might angrily confront me about my vote to take away women’s reproductive rights, so like the coward I am I had to hide from them”.

  149. 149.

    Other MJS

    @sdhays: I love the selectiveness with which some folks attribute to God what most of us think is determined by chance. By that logic, you should frequent casinos to allow God to determine how much money you should have.

  152. 152.

    Soprano2

    @StringOnAStick: Last year I had my mother’s lawn service set her sprinklers, since I know nothing about those systems. They set it to come on EVERY DAY, instead of the 3 days a week they told me they were going to set. I didn’t know it until I got the next month’s water bill, which was easily 10x what her usual bill was even when she lived there! I was pretty pissed, but I had to pay the bill. I called them and told them what happened; they were skeptical until they came and saw what they had done. I made sure they fixed it!

  153. 153.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @SiubhanDuinne: Clarence, always and ever the victim. He has to fly private and vacation at private resorts because otherwise he would surely be targeted, assailed or maybe even confronted.

    Edit: I see Soprano2 has the same thought.

  154. 154.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kent: Thank you! That insight seems to elude a lot of smart, well-meaning people too, not just the usual dumb and/or craven hacks.

  156. 156.

    Chris

    @Other MJS:

    I’m not up on the subtleties of the Prosperity Gospel, but I suspect there are not one but many snake oil salesmen who’ve argued that exact thing to get people to gamble.

  157. 157.

    CaseyL

    @artem1s: ​

    I don’t know anything about his past – whether he was ever any good in whatever political post he had – but it looks to me like he’s a Conserva-Dem and, having failed to get back into elected office, has decided to ride on that sweet grifter train. Not nearly as much actual work, and a whole lot more money.

  158. 158.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Geminid:

    They were too saucy. Soon after, a Union artillerist cut the incautious Polk almost in half with a well-aimed shot.

    Well, that’s horrifying

  160. 160.

    Soprano2

    @Paul in KY: I don’t know, that’s what I need to hire someone to figure out. My husband said it could be disassembled, but it was there when he bought the house, so I think that’s just his belief. The HVAC guy says it’s probably over 60 years old; it’s never been turned on as long as I’ve lived there, since 1989. It’s unsafe to turn it on at this point.

  161. 161.

    Joey Maloney

    I just got back from the Tønder music festival. A grand for the flight to Denmark, another $1K for entry  to the festival plus glamping adjacent to the festival site (which wasn’t very glamp, but it was the only option where all I had to was show up and everything was provided for me). Probably another $500 for food for the four days. But for that I got to see about ten sets including three of my favorite performers, most from right in front of the stage. Money well spent as far as I’m concerned.

  163. 163.

    wjca

    @RaflW:

    It was definitely noticeable in the White House statement: “This Administration will continue to work closely with first responders and local officials as the storm progresses.”  Striking lack of any mention of the Governor.

  165. 165.

    smith

    @Other MJS: There’s also the selectivity with which they attribute natural disasters to god’s wrath. Somehow this time he’s not commenting on the status of LBGTQ people in FL, but other times and places that’s exactly what he’s reacting to.

  168. 168.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Ken: But is he competent? I was under the impression his entire term as governor has been performative stunts setting up this run for president

    But among those performances was a performative competence which I’ve never witnessed but the media assures me is there. Also, too, Trump is the point against which all other Republican competence levels are measured.

    Admittedly: He has been pretty effective at doing some monstrous shit.

  170. 170.

    JaySinWA

    @OzarkHillbilly: Saying “I’m not qualified to say” that this specific weather event is caused by climate change seems like a pretty good general statement for all politicians. It’s a whole lot less damaging than denial and more helpful than uninformed assertions.

    It’s too easy to find a way to explain away an individual event, and often it is true[ish].

  171. 171.

    Jeffro

    @OzarkHillbilly: The Fro family once shared an elevator with him (no Ginni) and a few other people, as we were all leaving a show at the Kennedy Center 7-8 years ago.

    I did not know it was him until the elevator opened, he exited, and one of the other dudes in the elevator goes, “hey, I think that was Justice Thomas.”

    after which, Justice Thomas waves back at us over his shoulder.

    classic D.C.

  172. 172.

    Paul in KY

    @Joey Maloney: Just looking at the lineup. Have seen Blackberry Smoke, Leftover Salmon, Nickel Creek, Sarah Jarosz and The Local Honeys. All great acts. Saw The Local Honeys when they were just starting out. They played on a 7 foot by 7 foot stage before 150 people (Well Crafted Fest in Shakertown. Is defunct now).

    I bet y’all had a wonderful time!!!

  173. 173.

    Ken

    @Paul in KY: Maybe they put the furnace in while building the house? Like in the second book I ever owned, “Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel”.  (The first was “Harry the Dirty Dog”.)

  174. 174.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Ken: ​
      Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel was one of my first books as well. I loved it. I can still picture the illustrations.

  175. 175.

    Paul in KY

    @Ken: Could be on that one they have to remove. Soprano2 just said it had not been used since the 80s. Wondered what was used.

  176. 176.

    Soprano2

    @Paul in KY: We have a wood furnace that I want to keep as a backup, which the HVAC guy said was fine. I want that old one out of there anyway, it’s taking up a lot of room. HVAC guy says the new one would be a lot smaller than the old one.

  177. 177.

    Geminid

    @jonas: I wonder if Khanna will get a strong primary challenger next year. He’s pissed off Democrats everywhere else.

    And I’ve read that some district Democrats still have hard feelings about Khanna’s 2016 campaign against incumbent Mike Honda, not just because of the result but also the methods used.

    With the help of David Sacks, Khanna’s building an ample war chest that will be difficult to match, so it will take a strong efgort to beat him. With all the money the Senate primary candidates will attract, there might be slim pickings for other Democrats.

    And California must have a songular dynamic in general elections where two Democrats have advanced from the jungle primary and Republican votes become a factor. Maybe Khanna has that in mind when he plays footsie with conservatives.

    But Khanna may just like to be on TV, and knows that news sites value contrarians. I’ve noticed that politicians like Khanna like to hear themselves talk and want others to have the pleasure. They might even think they’re being generous.

  178. 178.

    Soprano2

    See my answer at 175. I’ve been told that the house has a dugout basement; I think they must have put it in when they did that, probably in the 1930’s or 1940’s. Hard to know at this point.

  180. 180.

    Ken

    @Soprano2: Oh yes, the newer furnaces are much smaller, and far more energy-efficient. If you can get one of the ones that use a power orb, your electricity or natural gas usage will drop drastically.

  191. 191.

    Joey Maloney

    @Paul in KY: I missed Blackberry Smoke, but saw everyone else on your list plus Aoife O’Donovan, Sierra Farrell, Kíla, Altman, É.T.É, Jim Lauderdale, Sorten Muld, Shane Smith and the Saints (by accident), and these guys.

  193. 193.

    catclub

    @Cameron: because he drove the workers away. What a guy!

     

    After katrina there was a huge influx of workers. Virtually all the roofers were latino. Nobody in government in Miss and Louisiana made a peep.

  194. 194.

    Ruckus

    @lowtechcyclist:

    So they are not just acting like assholes.

    They are the real deal – full on – assholes.

    I find it refreshing to actually see humans as they present themselves. Gives them position, gives them respect for who they want to be and have successfully become.

  195. 195.

    Tony Jay

    @smith:

    No one pays them to do it on the Right side of the aisle, which would be a problem (for them) if the News Media didn’t feel so obliged to give them all the credit for doing it anyway.

    @Mr. Bemused Senior:

      Can anyone still think “oh, it’s just talk, what’s the harm”?

    Pay them enough in cash or kind and you can find an inexhaustible conveyor belt of gonads who’ll say they think exactly that. Also, if they’re asking “What’s the harm to them?” it becomes a lot easier to convince themselves of whatever pays best.

  198. 198.

    ljdramone

    @Chris:

    I’ll never forget the priest at my alma mater who once tried to tell me that if the thirteen colonies had been founded by us instead of the Protestants, slavery would have ended a lot sooner.

    (You know, like it did in Cuba and Brazil and…  I’ll come in again).

    Or like in…  Maryland!

    Maryland was founded specifically as a refuge for English Catholics, but Ann Joice’s descendants in Maryland were not legally free until November 1, 1864.

  199. 199.

    Chris

    @ljdramone:

    Yeah, that was actually the first thing that occurred to me, though not until a couple hours after the conversation.

    An apologist can probably weasel out of that, though, by pointing out that Maryland didn’t remain a Catholic colony: it was eventually turned Protestant by force, with Catholics banned from holding public office or voting, which remained the status quo until the American Revolution.

  201. 201.

    Rob in CT

    ““I’m a reactionary but I’m also sick of not being accepted in polite society because of my reactionary views” is basically all reactionaries.

  203. 203.

    Ruckus

    @Betty:

    These sound like stories direct from moscow.

    vlad is spending an enormous amount and screwing his own people and Ukraine for very little power on the world stage,  none of which he will actually get, and all because his ego is as big as the outdoors of his country, with only bluster and munitions to back it up.

  204. 204.

    Chris

    @Ruckus:

    vlad is spending an enormous amount and screwing his own people and Ukraine for very little power on the world stage,  none of which he will actually get

    That’s the most embarrassing thing.  Even if Putin gets everything he wants – Ukraine defeated and conquered, a Republican Vichy state in Washington, NATO and the EU broken up and replaced by a bunch of pliable regimes – he still won’t be the one to reap the benefit.  Because the harm he’s done to his country (which, let’s face it, was never exactly on the sturdiest ground in the first place) in the process has been so extensive, there won’t be enough of it left to be anything more than a client state for Beijing.  Putin’s ultimate legacy will have been to turn Russia into China’s own “near abroad.”

    (Say, remember the old Connery-era James Bonds?  Where China was the implied client behind SPECTRE, and the name of the game was rooting for Russia and the West to beat each other to exhaustion, so they could pick up the pieces?  Well…)

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