Staff of the Federal Emergency Management Agency were left baffled on Monday after the head of the U.S. disaster agency said during a briefing that he had not been aware the country has a hurricane season, according to four sources familiar with the situation.
The U.S. hurricane season officially began on Sunday and lasts through November. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecast last week that this year’s season is expected to bring as many as 10 hurricanes.
I guess all the red states that voted for this are gonna get what they voted for and get it hard. Shame they will all have to go through this.
Bill in Glendale, a magnificent photographer whose work has been displayed here more times than I can count, is very close to hitting his goal to help with a housing crisis. If you can pitch in, let’s help him reach his goal.
Bring on the pain:
Trump’s budget dramatically reduces the robustness of the federal social safety net, on which three in ten Americans (including nearly half of children) rely for critical programs ranging from health care to food security. Most drastically, the bill is set to cut Medicaid by nearly $800 billion over 10 years, add burdensome and ineffective work requirements and kick as many as 13 million people off their health insurance.
These cuts will have demonstrably negative consequences for millions of Americans, including those who are not themselves enrolled in Medicaid. The irony is that despite nearly every Republican House member voting for its passage, it is rural, Republican majority communities that will face the most extreme consequences.
Nineteen percent of Americans, or over 72 million, are insured by Medicaid and the share of the 66 million rural Americans on Medicaid is even higher at 23 percent. And not only do America’s rural communities tend to vote more conservatively, but this is even true of Medicaid beneficiaries, the very people whose health coverage Republican legislators seek to strip away.
The good people of West Virginia have no idea what is about to hit them.
You folks were not kidding about Andor- it’s amazing.
SpaceUnit
They should just go ahead and cancel hurricane season altogether. No one really likes it except for the folks at The Weather Channel.
Elizabelle
WRT FEMA: it was once a very well run agency. The Trump dumpster team is just in there to destroy.
I think it was rikyrah (?) who put up Norm Ornstein’s tweet (also on Bluesky) today:
Here is the bluesky link. Here is George Conway reposting it.
With Conway’s own take:
Jackie
@SpaceUnit:
Jim Cantore would be devastated!
comrade scotts agenda of rage
The “good folks of WV” will be told to find a way to blame the pain on Democrats. And follow suit on those instructions.
The modern GOP pays *no* electoral consequences for this shit.
None.
Leto
Found this the other day: PaleyLive: An Evening with Stephen Colbert and Tony Gilroy: Andor Season Two
Hour long, but very enjoyable.
Scout211
LOL. It was
locker room talkbraggadocioa joke, people!I guess hearing your boss tell a joke in poor taste beats having an idiot for a boss. But I repeat myself.
SpaceUnit
They should cancel shark week too while we’re at it. Sure sharks were popular back in the day but now people mostly avoid them.
They’re like the marine equivalent of jello salad.
The Audacity of Krope
Funny thing about jokes, they tend to speak toward something true.
Gin & Tonic
I’m glad that BillinGlendale has been able to meet his goal.
RevRick
When we speak of all the children on Medicaid, who we really are talking about is almost exclusively their working mothers. The “work requirements” are supposedly designed to keep able-bodied non-working adults off of Medicaid. Spoiler alert: they are also the ones eating cats and dogs, that is they don’t exist. What these requirements are actually designed to do is make keeping those benefits a hellish nightmare for said working moms. Eighty-hours a month sounds reasonable… until you factor in childcare… or a kid getting sick… or the irregularity of part time work… or the endless aggravation of paperwork… or you get the picture.
That’s the economic part of this agenda. But ultimately it reflects the reactionary project of putting women in their place— back in the kitchen, out of the workforce, and utterly dependent on a man, who will, by right, boss her around. Behind every policy move by the GOP lurks a cultural war.
The Audacity of Krope
@RevRick: They don’t want us dependent on something we all worked to build together. They want us dependent on a handful of business owners.
Old School
@Scout211: It was a pun! No – it was one of those things that read the same backwards and forwards! A palindrome!
XeckyGilchrist
Once they find out, they’re going to be REALLY mad at the Democrats.
SFAW
@Old School:
Like Ipswich is the palindrome of Bolton?
Ohio Mom
Ohio Son has been on a Medicaid Waiver for about twenty years, and every year we have to re-submit paperwork.
We used to have to prove he was still autistic and a citizen but now that he is an adult we just have to prove he has less than $2,000 in unsheltered assets (though they insist on documentation of the Trust and the ABLE account, which is ridiculous because those accounts don’t count. We paid a lawyer a lot of money to make that so).
Anyway, every year I have an anxiety attack over this, even though I have the file and notes from the year before and know what paperwork is needed and where to find it, and I have Ohio Dad (the ace at fine print) to help and the nice benefits administrators at the county board of developmental disabilities holding my hand.
Too long/didn’t read: Government benefits already require recipients to run through gauntlets. Repeatedly. You have to have all sorts of paperwork at the ready, and access to a copy machine. It’s time-consuming and intimidating.
SFAW
@XeckyGilchrist:
How will that be any different from now?
RevRick
@The Audacity of Krope: No doubt they would just love to restore the ancien regime , with plutocrats the new feudal lords. What these idiots don’t understand is that all their power and wealth depends on a healthy middle class. They don’t understand that the most complex systems in our society, which produce the real goods and services, are fragile and easily broken. A society composed of lords and serfs looks just like the 1300s. Again.
Gloria DryGarden
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: we need to change that. They need to pay, and get consequences.
Gloria DryGarden
Im just thinking the head of FEMA needs to move to hurricane lands for a several month home stay. He can check out what it’s like first hand to not know when you need to evacuate.. or to have his town flooded..
Jackie
O/T Is this a deliberate poke at Murkowski’s defiance to FFOTUS?
eta, I would think republican Senator Robinson would object? Unless as a Repug, he’s owned by Big Oil?
NotMax
No more of this futzing around with gauges and meters and dials. Arm the hurricane hunters to kill that thing dead.
//
Gloria DryGarden
@The Audacity of Krope: i have experience with those work demands, for SNAP. I was working 25-30 hours a week as a substitute paraprofessional w kids, no sick time when I caught the flu from them, just loss of work for a week or two. And I was supposed to put in another 20 hrs a week at goodwill, on my feet, lifting and moving stuff, because my work was irregular or temporRy and not a steady regular minimum of 20 hours. Not even a Mom. It was going to be untenable and exhausting, and I had chronic pain, so thankfully I was able to get a waiver via doctor letter. But it would have been so oppressive. I would not hate had the energy to water my garden, but and prepare meals. And for Moms, completely untenable. those kids need meals and shopping and to.e a d attention and human connection. we are not machines.
prostratedragon
Mexican restaurants consider renaming the taco.
Jackie
@Jackie: edit to correct name: Sullivan is Repug Alaskan Senator.
Bulgakov
Is it bad, without a functioning FEMA, to wish for major hurricanes to hit (if they do hit) in this order based on the shittiness of their Congressional delegations) 1. South Carolina, 2. Florida, 3. Alabama, & 4. Mississippi?
Jackie
@prostratedragon: I know the difference between a taco and TACO.
Chetan Murthy
@SpaceUnit: I am reminded of what Sartre said:
Chetan Murthy
@Gloria DryGarden: I remember when Wisconsin “ended welfare as we know it” (under Clinton). I remember reading the articles detailing the daily treks of the mothers who were getting support — the craziness they had to go thru, multiple long bus trips daily, to/from work, to/from day care for their kids and on and on.
The cruelty is the point.
Leto
@Jackie: They’ve been gunning to get into that area for years; decades, honestly. Biden signed protections for it, but ofc TACO reversed them (or is in the process). They’ll ruin every last one of our national treasures as long as it brings another penny to them. An unrelenting hellscape of a depleted, dead planet is the only gift they intend to bequeath us.
SpaceUnit
@Chetan Murthy:
Not sure I grasp your meaning, but I gotta amuse myself somehow.
ETA: I mean, I’m not anti-shark but just anti-sharkism.
prostratedragon
@Jackie: Much harder to distinguish TACO and saco escrotal pero sin comida, though.
Chetan Murthy
@Chetan Murthy: Oh, I’m sorry, I meant that as a response to @Scout211: ‘s quote about this FEMA shithead and his DHS spokesbot.
Gvg
@RevRick: they also do stuff like requiring them to check in in person on a weekday, when they are open, but which also is likely to be a day they are supposed to work. The location won’t be convenient (I think because the agency doesn’t have money and takes a cheap location). I didn’t use this myself, but I learned a lot when zi was a foster mom.
Conservative politicians keep putting “reasonable” conditions on the help, often involving subcontracting functions out to religious based charities that can do it more “cheaply” but the result is the same employees no longer work for the government, get fewer benefits and more work till they quit, and the poor they are supposed to be helping have to run around to more different places doing the same paperwork multiple times, until they give up because they can’t take more time off. It’s cheaper because fewer people succeed in using it. Working parents need efficiency and their time respected too.
Gloria DryGarden
An amazing poem for pride month, by John roedel
(an open poem to closed hearts)
when you hate
someone else
because they are
different than you
you are unknowingly hating on
the very Architect of Creation itself
~ to rage against a color
you have never seen before
because its exotic
tincture offends
your orthodox eyes
suggests that you believe
the Divine Artist is worried
about what you think
did the first burst of
cosmic energy care
about its critics when
it began to paint life
across the constantly
unfolding canvas of
the known universe?
hell no
it just wildly created
this delicate masterpiece
of endless fire, orchestrated chaos
and a trillion or so wobbling worlds
like a Michelangelo made out of an
army of swarming angels
every inch of everything
that exists is a unique piece
of abstract splatter art
so, if the Divine was so
unrestrained when
it came to creating
the stretching forever
kingdom of stars
it would make sense
that God was even
more uninhibited when
it came to how we
were made
each of us are a wow sculpture of
unbridled never-seen-before genius
who are you
to decide how
The Everlasting Potter
molds their art?
get over your fear
of people who
look
live
pray
love
believe
differently than you do
because the more you hide
from what is foreign to you
the more you hide from
the miracle of this existence
you only get to ride this
skin and bone rollercoaster
for so long
quit closing your eyes
stare into the swirl
because that’s where God’s
most profound artwork is
hurry up
open your eyes
you’re missing it
open your eyes
hurry up
and once you do
you will see it
the relentless power
of creation
oh, and how you’ll gasp
when you finally see it
~ john roedel
Gloria DryGarden
@Chetan Murthy: and not being able to buy decent food, is the other oppressive cruelty. The desperation to care for ones children
We are governed by savages
Gloria DryGarden
@Bulgakov: I’ll give you a sharpie so you can direct them where they should go
Another Scott
OT – Is it just me or is BlueSky really, really slow to refresh tonight. (I don’t have an account. Just using the web interface on Chrome.)
E.g. https://bsky.app/profile/cultureoftruth.bsky.social
Mastodon may not be as popular, but it seems to work much better when it comes to reliably displaying pages.
FWIW.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Gloria DryGarden
@Another Scott: sometimes it depends which feed, they seem to have different servers or moderators. Had trouble 10 minutes ago, changed devices. Also, having an account helps. I mean, sometimes I have to log back in to access it
prostratedragon
An article in the Alt-FEMA Newsletter describes Richardson’s first days at FEMA (Note my emphasis):
These are some arrogant, clownish bastards.
hitchhiker
@Ohio Mom: I think that people who don’t have to deal with these systems on the regular can’t access the mental/emotional workload of it. It’s not just that it’s humiliating to be distrusted in this way, it’s that you’re always kind of aware that someone might decide to fuck with you. Maybe they resent you for some weird reason. Maybe they’re trying to show off for their boss. Maybe they don’t understand their job.
Whatever it is, you know that it could happen & things could go sideways. And that makes the whole process fraught in the way that driving on icy roads in the dark is fraught. You’re trying so hard to be careful, gripping that wheel and half holding your breath until you make it home one more time.
Gloria DryGarden
Josh johnson has a big tour going. He’ll be in dc June 13-14,
says the e-flyer I’m looking at.
perfect timing!
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
Just a note to thank Cole for the mention and to thank everyone who chipped in. I really appreciate it and the kind words many had about my work. Again, thanks.
Anthony
Andor was incredible, I got a kick out of the alien/foreign language they created which SOUNDS like French, but uses a completely different vocabulary.
Nancy
I donated what I could afford to Bill in Glendale. His photographs bring joy and I’m glad you let us know.
Miss Bianca
@Gloria DryGarden: Niiiiice. Just popped into a dead thread to say so.
VOR
@Bulgakov: I’m kinda holding out for a Cat 5 direct hit on Mar-A-Lago.
H.L. Mencken said “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
Yes, they voted for this.
Josie (also)
@hitchhiker: This was years ago, but I had to deal with a family members Medicaid application denial. I had two suitcases of documents to go through. It took many weeks to go through, and maybe 12 pages to send to appeal the denial. So a lot of work unpaid but demanding both an understanding of Medicaid rules and how to document what has happened.
When you require documentation for someone who’s income may vary from month to month two times a year you are adding an enormous burden. This person is already working many hours a week, probably taking care of their household and other relatives and friends, and may be taking public transportation with unpaid time spent.
People demanding the additional documentation say they are stopping fraud. Instead, they are imposing a very real tax on the people in need of help.
.