By David Futrelle
Much like Katrina, Harvey is turning into a slow-motion catastrophe as the deluge continues and flood waters rise. The National Weather Service is predicting more than 50 inches of rain in some areas, “beyond anything experienced before.”
Donald Trump, meanwhile, takes to Twitter to promote the book of a sheriff nearly as terrible as Joe Arpaio, talk about his stupid wall, brag about his win in Missouri, and issue meaningless bromides on how well everything is going in Texas, where things are decidedly not going well.
If you’re a WHTM reader in an area hit by Harvey, let us know how you are doing. We can signal boost if you need help!
Let’s go to the Tweets:
— NWS Weather Prediction Center (@NWSWPC) August 27, 2017
https://twitter.com/owillis/status/901805101916016640
Buffalo Bayou Park in Houston
before and after.And the flooding continues.#Harveyhttps://t.co/bsW19AFBs3 pic.twitter.com/k6e1YqVBS8
— Holly Figueroa O'Reilly (@AynRandPaulRyan) August 27, 2017
https://twitter.com/justinhendrix/status/901866486444302337
ICE Left 50 Immigrant Women And Kids Stranded At Bus Station Before Hurricane Harvey Struck https://t.co/LRhaWcji3c
— grace wyler (@grace_lightning) August 27, 2017
FYI: They were taken in by a local church.
"things are bad in texas, but also don't forget mexico is full of criminals and i won missouri by a lot" pic.twitter.com/b4FFxwydw3
— Mike Murphy (@mcwm) August 27, 2017
OMFG. The city of Houston's 911 services are at capacity. They're not even answering emergency calls right now.
Great coordination, tho. pic.twitter.com/vU4OFu501U
— Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D (@RVAwonk) August 27, 2017
https://twitter.com/lpolgreen/status/901834781796814848
https://twitter.com/mshannabrooks/status/901856722360270848
How trump is acting now is how he would also act if we got hit with a nuclear missile from North Korea
Plugging a book & 2020 rallying
— 🏳️🌈Spacedad (@SuperSpacedad) August 27, 2017
If you want to help, some suggestions.
THREAD: Local Houston charities helping with Harvey https://t.co/NbL7NbykHU
— David Futrelle (@DavidFutrelle) August 27, 2017
https://twitter.com/kathbarbadoro/status/901866381079175170
https://twitter.com/texasinafrica/status/901850102750482432
In other news:
WATCH: Man fired at another person in Charlottesville on Aug. 12. We handed 📹 to LE agencies. The man has been arrested & charged w a crime. pic.twitter.com/0vrXq4zNC0
— ACLU of Virginia (@ACLUVA) August 26, 2017
Richard Preston of The Imperial Wizard of The Confederate White Knights in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Arrested for firing at crowd pic.twitter.com/ByMtNGNBFX
— Chris Sampson (@sampsonlive) August 27, 2017
Protesters gather against bigotry and hatred at the spot of a cancelled right-wing rally in Berkeley https://t.co/QwGcbegKul
— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) August 27, 2017
In more neo-Nazi news….. https://t.co/1IYMjBl3tB
— Raw Story (@RawStory) August 27, 2017
https://twitter.com/VicBergerIV/status/901885906461831168
Time to stick together.
https://twitter.com/zboah/status/901820525927944192
Accept my love! https://t.co/NWeYA6RhuV
— Dog and Kitty (@dognkitty) August 27, 2017
Guess we can be up front and open about our Nazism now, pOTUS has our back….
In the middle of a national emergency and natural disaster, Trump still can’t stop talking about himself.
Y’know it’s funny (and by funny I mean not really funny at all) about the frenzy by the igno-right over bannon and gorka being fired, since the dumpster has shown clearly he’s still 100% on board with a Nazi agenda… he just wants to be the only one anyone’s talking about… but the minions are all “he’s selling the white race out!!!”
So far we have been very very lucky here in my immediate area. I am worried about friends and family though. A few places have been told to evacuate, but they can’t get out, because roads are flooded and closed. They are saying on the news to only call 911 if it is life threatening, and a few inches of water in your house does not count. Any citizens with boats are being asked to loan them to the rescue efforts.
It’s scary stuff. I’ve been hearing some rumors about ICE checkpoints, no idea what is going on with that but if they are true it’s really inhumane and terrible.
People are already pointing fingers, wondering why the whole city wasn’t evacuated. The sad truth about that is, a city this size would be very difficult to totally evacuate. Last time we tried it, during Hurricane Rita, the freeways were totally backed up and people died in the heat when they ran out of gas.
Question I’ve always had: do Grand Master Imperial Dragon Wizards or whatevs actually think they’re magic?
Jim Mattis gave a talk to some troops the other day. Someone filmed it with a phone and put it on Facebook. Apparently the White House is not happy about it.
I’m less worried about the immediate emergency and more worried about the recovery. The former is being mostly managed by career professionals. The latter is going to depend on Trump and the Republican congress to get their shit together and fund clean up and rebuilding and take care of people who’ve lost their homes and/or businesses. I’m not too optimistic about that.
Trump’s tweets have been bizarre, even by his standards. He’s positively giddy about how cool and yuge this storm is.
Can’t wait for Trump to fly Airforce One over Texas.
Now for something nicer. A big fluffy dog gives an inspirational speech
And David Tennant tells us that everything will be okay.
Ok. That hurricane feel otherwordly.
Suddenly, predictions of the USA or south asia becoming unhabitable don’t feel so far fetched.
While Texas floods, Trump can’t shut up about his win in Missouri and so forth.
To be fair to the president, if he were stuck in this flood you’d hear a lot more about the flood. And how he’s stuck in it. And it’s hard. Heeeeeeeeeeeeeelp!
To the Texas Mammotheers: Please stay safe.♥♥♥
Times like this, I really miss President Obama.
Safe wishes to all storm-tossed Mammotheers.
We Mammotheers need cheering up:
Trump is shedding supporters like no other president in modern history
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-mcmanus-trump-polls-20170827-story.html
These voters don’t seem to be afraid of the hatred Trump promotes. But IMO, deep down they know that the hatred is part of the Trump package (the largest part) and that it promotes economic and political instability. And I think that they know that although instability might benefit the rich in some ways (for example, Joe Kennedy, father of US president John F. Kennedy and US attorney general Robert Kennedy, made an economic killing during the 1929 worldwide economic Depression), it’s highly unlikely to benefit them. Trump voters, the next time you vote, kindly check your id!
The weather has been really wacky these last 10 years or so. But global warming is a MYTH!!! AmIright? (snark)
Some really weird, as yet unexplained corrosive chemical mist has crept ashore in Eastborne, England. Strange news weekend:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/aug/27/birling-gap-evacuated-after-chemical-incident-on-east-sussex-coast
Faerie Bard, glad you’re ok!
Misophistry,
Oh my. Change England to Maine and that’s literally a Stephen King story!
We’re on the edge of the Hurricane up here in Belton. Mostly rain and flash floods in low areas. I know some people further south who came up this way on Friday to escape the storm, though. Hopefully it wears itself out before it gets too much farther.
but global warming is a chinese hoax!!!
hurricanes aren’t exacerbated by warmer ocean temperatures what are you talking about
?
I missed him January 21st, and I haven’t stopped.
I’m in Houston. We’re okay, but housebound, because it’s flooding all around us. Quite a few people we know have flooded. It’s frustrating, because we can’t leave to help anyone else right now or we might have to be rescued ourselves.
We decided to stay put because we’ve never flooded and evacuating during Rita was a miserable, miserable experience. Sometimes it’s better to stay put and let the people who really need to get out have the roads.
FWIW, I think the orders for us to shelter in place in Harris County were mostly correct, but they could have been a little bit more nuanced. Once the coastal areas subject to storm surge were evacuated south of us, I think they should have suggested that people responsible for small children and disabled people evacuate, followed by people who have flooded before. Fuck Greg Abbot though, panicking people like that.
I’m safe, though all the rain has shown a few leaks in different parts of the house. No flooding expected here. Just rain and wind. So far, so good. Donated to Globalgiving’s Hurricane Harvey fund, since I really don’t trust the Red Cross to spend the money on actual help.
ETA: I wish my misreading of the page title as “Underwear: Today in Tweets” had been accurate.
Trump might be able to deliver on his short-term promises of manufacturing jobs, better healthcare for some middle class people, infrastructure programs, and lower middle class taxes if he pursues a consistent economic protectionist policy and does a good job renegotiating trade deals that are very favorable (short-term) to U.S. workers. The key is that American workers would benefit from those policies in the in the short-term, but policies like those rarely work out over the long-term.
The problem is that Trump is so incompetent, and the GOP is so dedicated to helping the richest of the rich, that he won’t be able to get any substantive policies implemented. Even communists recognize that Trump doesn’t understand NAFTA.
Plus, some of Trump’s more mainstream conservative supporters are getting less tolerant of the Nazi stuff. A few opinion polls show that the average “very conservative” voter thinks Nazi and KKK groups don’t have a right to free speech and should be criminally prosecuted. They’re not sympathetic to an MRA Nazi who does crystal meth in his anus.
Glad to hear that our Texas Mammotheers are safe. I hope you all continue to be.
I really cannot come up with anything funny about Trumps tweets. So much suffering and he cannot even fake concern or even focus. And just think, we probably haven’t even reached the nadir of his presidency yet.
@History Nerd
Not true, despite what market purists insist. I haven’t the energy for a lengthy discourse on it right now, but I recommend you have a look at Ha-Joon Chang’s Kicking Away The Ladder and Bad Samaritans.