Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

“But what about the lurkers?”

Not all heroes wear capes.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

Let there be snark.

In after Baud. Damn.

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

Humiliatingly small and eclipsed by the derision of millions.

No one could have predicted…

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

Be a wild strawberry.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

You are here: Home / Politics / Biden Administration in Action / Cold Grey Pre-Dawn Open Thread: Baltimore Updates

Cold Grey Pre-Dawn Open Thread: Baltimore Updates

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Per the NYTimes, “What We Know About the Francis Scott Key Bridge Collapse in Baltimore” [gift link]:

The giant container ship that struck and downed the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore in the early hours of March 26 remains pinned under the twisted remains of the bridge. Officials have outlined plans for their effort to recover the bodies of victims, free the vessel, dismantle the wreckage and reopen the city’s port as quickly as possible.

They have begun to clean up the debris to clear the channel to one of the nation’s busiest ports, and so far have removed a 200-ton piece of the bridge, officials said. As part of the operation, officials brought in a crane capable of lifting 1,000 tons.

On Thursday, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it hoped to open a channel for limited access by the end of April, and reopen to normal port traffic by the end of May.

On another front, federal investigators said that they were interviewing key crew members and examining hours of data recordings. But the investigation into the ship crash could take years, they said.

The bridge is a part of Interstate 695 and a critical transportation link on the East Coast. The disaster has become America’s deadliest bridge collapse in more than a decade…



The GOP, of course, is responding with its usual intelligence and empathy…

Reader Interactions

27Comments

  2. 2.

    satby

    They sound like deranged hostage takers because that’s what they are. It’s the only way they can get what they want. And even then, like with the border concessions to get aid to Ukraine, they renege on the deal to try to get more.

  6. 6.

    Dangerman

    @Villago Delenda Est: Let’s be fair. Traitor is a little strong. I’ll go only as far as rancid pieces of shit that would sell their Daughters  and Mothers into prostitution if It got them a tax cut for the 1%.

  7. 7.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    “But the investigation into the ship crash could take years, they said.”

    This has to change. Something like this shouldn’t take years to determine what happened when most everyone already knows most of it already. Companies poorly maintain their equipment, run with it in dangerous condition and refuse to pay for tugs, all because they are too expensive. Now they knocked down a bridge and don’t want to pay for it but rather, stick us with the bill.

     

    Seriously, something needs to be done to light a fire under our regulatory bodies. I understand taking the time to get things right but this is fucking stupid.

  8. 8.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @Dangerman: Yeah … there’s a reason that “treason” was narrowly defined in the Constitution. I’d use the term “fellow travelers” except that on looking it up, it has a historical anti-fascist bent to it, which the 21st-century GOP is most emphatically not.

  9. 9.

    Betty Cracker

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: I had the same thought when I read that the investigation could “take years.” There are multiple videos of the crash, FFS! It might take years to litigate the legal culpability, but we already know how to make bridges safer from collisions.

  10. 10.

    Gretchen

    What’s interesting to me is that Governor Larry Hogan pushed to allow these big container ships into the port despite warnings from engineers and safety experts that this could happen. Now he has to defend that decision while running for Senate. People warned him, he ignored the warnings and people died.

  12. 12.

    Betty Cracker

    @satby: Excellent point. The cure for that is obvious too — stop reelecting members of the party who block accountability and progress.

  13. 13.

    ColoradoGuy

    The entire ethos of the former GOP, or rather, the new Trump/Putin Party, is Cruelty Is Cool. That’s the one thing they all believe, from top to bottom.

    Rupert Murdoch, Rush Limbaugh, and Newt Gingrich created this monster … absolute contempt for any trace of compassion or basic humanity.

  14. 14.

    NotMax

    @Betty Cracker

    We have or can bring in people with expertise in these matters and I for one am not about to second guess their prowess in conducting a methodical investigatory procedure.

    All that is known with certainty are the when, the where and a sliver of the who. The how, why, what and the rest of the who remain to be responsibly determined.

  15. 15.

    Baud

    The right-wing House Freedom Caucus has released a list of demands to support funding for rebuilding the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore

    If we had left wingers who acted like them, the entire Dem party would be tarnished by it. I hope the freedom caucus sinks Hogan, although he should sink because of his own actions.

  18. 18.

    matt

    losing a family member is comparable to losing a family member. not sure what the hissing spiders of the media are trying to say.

  19. 19.

    satby

    @matt: That Joe Biden, rather than being empathetic (because they aren’t capable of empathy), is just milking his losses for votes. Pure projection , that’s what they would do so they naturally assume he is.

  20. 20.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Dangerman:

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR:

    I think ‘traitor’ is appropriate.  Remember, it means ‘someone who betrays,’ not ‘someone who commits treason.’   Though the latter is a subset of the former, there is plenty of room to betray this country and the Constitution in ways that don’t fit into the (appropriately IMHO) narrow definition of treason in the Constitution.

  22. 22.

    Kirk

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: nope. It will take 2-3 years to do the complete investigation and that has nothing to do with obstruction or slow rolling. Doing it faster is akin to thinking CSI is an accurate depiction of how long and how effective forensic science is.

    At the grossest level, we know. But we don’t know all the specifics. We don’t know what exactly failed and caused the power failure, just for one point. We don’t know how much of each parties’ stories are correct.

    We might not ever know it all. At some point the investigation will put out findings with unknowns listed, but sufficient for not only assigning fault but also recommendations for preventing a next time.

    And that will, as always in major disasters, take years.

  24. 24.

    evodevo

    @Kirk: ​
    One good thing: the ship didn’t sink, and is fully accessible to investigators. Should shorten the timeline.  One caveat: DON’T let the insurance claims adjusters be the only ones on board…there should be a 24/7 monitoring of the site and feds involved in the investigation, to make sure all the liable parties are open and honest about the findings.

  25. 25.

    Uncle Cosmo

    I wish folks would stop referring to the Key Bridge and its approaches as “part of Interstate 695” because it isn’t wasn’t (and won’t be once restored).

    It does did close the ring of the Baltimore Beltway, which is I-695 for the section between I-95 to the southwest of town (at about 8 on the clock) clockwise to I-95 northeast of town (2 on the clock). It does did afford an alternate route to I-95, shorter than I-695 and less of a hassle than driving through Baltimore City, for vehicles prohibited from either of the tunnels under the Patapsco River.

    But it has never met the minimum requirements for an interstate highway (e.g., the bridge and much of it approaches is was only 2 lanes wide). Therefore it is was designated state highway 695 (MD-695).

    And this is not unique: the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, which runs roughly parallel to I-95 but predates it, is designated MD-295 because it doesn’t qualify as an interstate either. (IIUC, for about the same reason – not enough lanes.) Both designations allude to a close relationship (but not equivalence) with the similar-numbered interstates.

    (And if this be pedantry, mark me down as unabashedly pedantic. IOW, sue me.)

  26. 26.

    Anonymous At Work

    @Gretchen: AND Hogan has to defend his party’s presidential nominee and his party’s calls for banning this-or-that or defunding something as a pre-condition for any federal aid.

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