By David Futrelle
News overload! We have a Category 4 hurricane bearing down on the coast of Texas that promises to dump massive quantities of rain as it pushes its way inland. The situation looks dire, and the chances that the Trump administration will be up to the challenge of dealing with it are essentially nil.
Meanwhile, Trump seems to be using the hurricane as cover to announce two, let’s say, controversial acts: the implementation of his straight-up hateful transgender ban, and a pardon of the despicable Joe Arpaio.
Oh, and Sebastian Gorka is OUT of the White House, meaning that the creepy pics of him I posted a week ago WORKED. I guess I’ll have to do Stephen Miller next.
Plus new news on the Russia investigation, and North Korea fires more missiles.
Let’s start with the literal hurricane.
"Rainfall of this magnitude will cause catastrophic and life-threatening flooding." https://t.co/bsXWMJFxP1
— Jamil Smith جميل كريم (@JamilSmith) August 25, 2017
This is scary. I have never seen a rainfall forecast like this in my entire career.
Texas will be recovering from #Harvey for years. https://t.co/2l4agI5WfC— Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) August 25, 2017
Texas mayor: If you're not evacuating before #HurricaneHarvey, write your name and SocSec number on your arm https://t.co/X48bSjYpwD pic.twitter.com/zXKVicrkO7
— Holly Figueroa O'Reilly (@AynRandPaulRyan) August 26, 2017
National Hurricane Center on the impact of Hurricane Harvey: "Locations may be uninhabitable for weeks or months.” https://t.co/aBPMA4uqr7 pic.twitter.com/0s8BGAyR3i
— CNN (@CNN) August 25, 2017
https://twitter.com/justinjm1/status/901222278066733062
As #Harvey Threatens Texas Coast, Immigration Checkpoints May Cost Lives, @reportbywilson at @Rewire_News: https://t.co/kG8HjjzWeC https://t.co/pE4oCbyIYV
— Rewire News Group (@RewireNewsGroup) August 25, 2017
https://twitter.com/owillis/status/901114037152477184
Anything to say to the people of Texas?
"Good luck."
🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄pic.twitter.com/rDcVcvcWRh— Holly Figueroa O'Reilly (@AynRandPaulRyan) August 25, 2017
But wait, there’s more:
Trump pardoned Sheriff Joe Arpaio
No better distraction than a #HurricaneHarvey to cover up a bad decision
This is a travesty of justice pic.twitter.com/qtsUvHtql7
— Ted Corcoran (RedTRaccoon) (@RedTRaccoon) August 26, 2017
DOJ had no role in Arpaio pardon per source with knowledge — this did not follow typical Office of Pardon Attorney process
— Laura Jarrett (@LauraAJarrett) August 26, 2017
There's no difference between Trump pardoning Sheriff Joe and telling his supporters he'll pay their legal fees for assaulting people.
— Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) August 26, 2017
FRIDAY DOCUMENT DUMP: Trump Signs Transgender Ban As Hurricane Coverage Dominates All Networks – https://t.co/b7TfvKrilX pic.twitter.com/yZGqOpmPkX
— JoeMyGod (@JoeMyGod) August 25, 2017
Trump's transgender ban is a vicious hate crime on a federal scale. Most Americans are against it.
— Steve Silberman (@stevesilberman) August 25, 2017
Doing a heckuva job, Donnie pic.twitter.com/u9etITxDo6
— David Futrelle (@DavidFutrelle) August 26, 2017
But we’re not done yet!
Another one bites the dust.
❌Gorka
❌Bannon
❌Scaramucci
❌Reince
❌Flynn
❌Spicer
❌Manafort
❌Page
❌Dubke
❌Epshtyn
❌Short
❌Harvey#ImpeachTrump— Scott Dworkin (@funder) August 26, 2017
Woah. IT WORKED. Gorka is OUT! I guess I'll do Stephen Miller next, then work up to Trump. https://t.co/l3tgp9tcKw
— David Futrelle (@DavidFutrelle) August 26, 2017
Gorka resigning in the middle of so much horrible news is like finding a $20 bill on the street before getting hit by a bus.
— Eugene Gu, MD (@eugenegu) August 26, 2017
#BREAKING: Special counsel investigating whether Flynn tried to obtain Clinton emails from Russia: report https://t.co/IAi2hMLNAT pic.twitter.com/w7RIADX87H
— The Hill (@thehill) August 25, 2017
And if that weren’t enough:
UPDATE: North Korea tests 3 short-range missiles. 2 failed in flight, 1 "appears to have blown up almost immediately." – @PacificCommand
— Kevin Baron (@DefenseBaron) August 25, 2017
ahh the familiar trans military ban category 4 hurricane joe arpaio pardon seb gorka resignation north korean missile news cycle
— Gideon Resnick (@GideonResnick) August 26, 2017
https://twitter.com/profmusgrave/status/901238685391360001
Trump administration—I know I don't ever have any Friday night plans, but it would be nice if you didn't just assume
— joel tyler (@joeltyler_) August 26, 2017
"Mr. President, Texas is facing total devastation and North Korea just fired a missile, what do you want to do"
"Let's pardon the racist"
— Ashley Feinberg (ashleyfeinberg.bsky.social) (@ashleyfeinberg) August 26, 2017
And a sort of kicker: Alt-right organizers in San Francisco have cancelled their original plan for a rally because they didn’t like the restrictions on things that could be used as weapons that the police were imposing on them. So now they’re planning an unsanctioned rally closer to where the counterprotesters will be. Clearly this isn’t about free speech. They want violence, and hope the violence will intimidate the left.
My statement on extremists' decision to cancel permitted rally at Crissy Field and to hold an illegal, volatile rally at Alamo Square. pic.twitter.com/MtN2T2fvDt
— Senator Scott Wiener (@Scott_Wiener) August 25, 2017
These are straight-up Nazi SS tactics.
I think we need a few cute animals right about now.
https://twitter.com/shibesbot/status/901140115266957313
https://twitter.com/zboah/status/901085820236464128
https://twitter.com/ReIatable/status/899198085771014144
https://twitter.com/bestcataccount/status/900877595092430849
EDIT: Added the stuff on the San Francisco rally.
EDIT 2: Added a few more tweets.
Maybe those MGTOW who keep predicting some kind of apocalypse will happen in the immediate future are on to something after all. First time for everything, right?
So, Gorka was forced out. Either that was to distract from pardoning Arpaio, or they’re getting nervous about Mueller’s investigation and thought this would shield them somehow.
Nothing about the alt-reich protest being moved from a permitted national park, to the center of San Francisco in a mixed-race neighborhood’s small park? That’s going to be so intrusive. I hope SF has the wherewithal to meet them there and say, no, sorry, no “press conference” without a permit.
Where’s Kanye?
‘Donald Trump doesn’t care about brown people’
Trump is the biggest coward ever.
Iseult, these assholes are looking for violence. Seeking it out. Disgusting shitheads.
@Axe
Unfortunately, I think that’s a wildly inaccurate characterisation. He doesn’t care about white people. He definitely cares about brown people, just not in a positive fashion.
@Dalillama: Irate Social Engineer
I’d go as far as to say he doesn’t care about people period. If a person’s not interested in praising and benefiting Trump he could care less about them.
@Dali
You pedantic fuck ❤
Depends on one’s definition of the word ‘care’, I suppose. I’d less say he ‘cares about’ and more that he’s ‘concerned with’ (but not ‘concerned for’) brown people. Eh, semantics 🙂
Iseult, I meant to put something in on that, gimme a second.
@Oogly
Nah, he specifically wants to hurt some categories of people; that counts as caring.
@Dalillama: Irate Social Engineer
Oh, yeah that does count….
I remember when caring meant something good. Good times, good times.
Satire is dead.
I added a tweet on the San Francisco rally and a bit of an explanation.
Wow. Just a few hours ago they were saying it wasn’t likely to go above a category 3.
Meanwhile, Trump is a category 6 fuck up.
There is one possible sign of hope in the government response to the hurricane. The current FEMA director, Brock Long, is that rarest of beasts in the Trump administration, an experienced and well-respected official.
On your way up to Trump, remember to curse Robert Mercer, who is incredibly dangerous. (Not sure what the results of the curse would be, considering that he’s not in the government, but anything that diminishes his power is good.) And Michael Anton, now a national security official, who’s more obscure than people like Gorka and Miller, and maybe not as overtly racist, but seems to be of a similar ilk. Before the election, he posted what passes for an intellectual argument for why intellectual conservatives should abandon their Never-Trump stance. It was titled “The Flight 93 Election,” and when I stumbled across it, its articulate xenophobia made my skin crawl.
Seems Gorka resigned because he feals that all the real “Make America Great Again” voices in the administration have either been forced out or silenced, according to published excerpts from his resignation letter. Guess Trumps administration has become to liberal for him.
All of this happened during my 2 hour nap.
Ooglyboggles, a little context for that picture?
@Tessa
https://twitter.com/WesleyLowery/status/901261418024009728
That picture is a screenshot of an actual Local Fox News piece.
Jesse Watters makes my skin crawl.
@Ooglyboggles
I totally figured it was a real screenshot, I was more curious what StateNews thought was “advanc[ing] leftist agenda”
@Tessa
You know, nefarious things. Very bad things that take away good things of you real Americans.
“The chances that the Trump administration will be up to the challenge of dealing with it are essentially nil.”
Kinda makes me wonder what the point of having a governor is.
Nothing like a hurricane to cover his pardoning of a racist former sheriff and advancing his anti-transgender bullshit. *sigh*
All he could muster up was “good luck,” huh? Lots of people are going to lose their homes and possibly lives, and it’s “good luck.”
I’m out of the immediate path where I am, but we are expecting an unprecedented amount of rain. My SO and I are stocked up, but keeping an eye on it in case we need to bug out with the felines. Our area does not usually flood, but some of the potential rainfall totals I have been hearing are making me nervous.
To my fellow Texans, please be safe out there.
@Stephen
Between 9/1 and 9/7/2005 Bush Jr requested and Congress approved over $62b for Katrina relief. In a week. In 2005 money. Texas state annual revenues total $109b. In 2015 money. Good luck with that. Also, Texas isn’t the only state that has to deal with this. Going back to Katrina, landfall directly affected Louisiana but also Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, and indirectly affected at least 15 other states. Coordination is key in a crisis, and a central government makes that possible
The point of having a governor is to oversee the day to day executive operations of a state. A category 4 hurricane is not a day to day executive operation. Simple as that…
There is a possible silver lining to this. The Bush administration’s shitty response to Katrina is what really turned the American people against him and the Republicans and allowed the Democrats to win the elections in 2006 and 08. Best case scenario is that FEMA is able to deal in spite of Trump’s incompetency so that we don’t have another Katrina style disaster, but Trump’s continued inability to even feign empathy for fellow Americans – even lots of white people in a red state – kills all benefit of the doubt anyone still had for Trump and the party that’s not really distancing themselves from him.
That’s a best case scenario though. We’ll see.
Do you really not understand that states have their own funds for natural disaster relief and that the governor is the one that calls in the National Guard for that state? I mean, states only have so many resources and that’s where federal relief comes in for something on this scale, but individual states do plenty.
In this case, Texas Governor’s main purpose is to sign, veto, or pardon. Try not to look as dumb as Rick Perry. Also, they can request Federal aid, and go to all those Governor Conventions. There’s some other powers, but that’s why Perry didn’t totally kill TX during his time in office.
Due to an odd quirk of TX Const., the Lt. Gov. has quite a bit more political power than the Gov. Summarizing:
This can be greatly influenced by Senate Rules passed at the beginning, but frequently leaves plenty of power for the Lt.Gov.
The Texas Constitution says you can’t be the governor of Texas when you’re not physically in the state. So Lt. Gov. takes over anytime that happens.
You remember that bit about “timing” earlier? Yeah.
Governor can call special sessions to discuss particular legislation, but again, Lt Gov controls TX Senate procedures.
Also, the Texas Constitution currently has 491 ratified amendments.