Minutiae?
For all of the people who don’t remember what happened when Hurricane Rita threatened Houston in 2005 you can read the NPR story or that of Adrastos at First Draft who was still cleaning up from Katrina when it hit. The short version is that more than ten times as many people died trying to evacuate, than those who didn’t. Texas has not corrected any of the major deficiencies that created the disaster in 2005, so it was probable that with an increased population the death toll would be even higher than over a 100 dead.
Meanwhile Susie Madrak has discovered the real reason for Trump going to Texas: selling hats. Curse his heart for the shriveled prune that it is, there is not a hint of empathy or compassion in that man’s soul. The fourth largest city in the US is under water, tens of thousands of people are homeless, an unknown number are dead, and the so-called President of the United States is hawking tchotchkes on the public’s dime.
19 comments
Selling hats was the cover story.
He was really shopping for real estate for the impeding Houston gentrification process funded by FEMA, patterned after the lessons learned at post-Katrina NOLA.
Wonder who’s going to get the trailer contract!?
It was probably both reasons. It’s ALWAYS about money w/ 45.
He has no soul or heart Bryan. No brain either. An empty shell, or piggy bank.
I was looking through some old blog bookmarks, a bit of nostalgia I think. I came across this on Wonkette.
Obama Took His Time Machine To Visit Hurricane Katrina Victims *Before He Was Even President*
She still has it! 😀 And obviously totally unimpressed by 45!
To buy real estate, Shirt, you need money. Type his name into Credit Karma and the bells and whistles explode. He has to borrow money from foreigners because he has no credit in the US. His ‘assets’ are real estate that is mortgaged to the max. He is selling the hats to pay some of the interest on what he owes. Most of his ‘deals’ lately have been sticking his ‘brand’ on other people’s products and acting like a shill.
Kryten, if we owed the kind of money he owes to the kind of people he borrowed it from, we would be all about money. 😈
George Bush the elder and Bill Clinton really get along and have done a number of joint projects. Trump is just an embarrassment to the country. He should do everyone, including his family, a favor and resign to play golf.
So appropriate that you used the word tchotchkes for what he’s doing!
The street vendors in the City have more class that Trump has ever showed. Yiddish is very handy for describing him in a way he can understand. He is someone who has the strange ability to change ‘a silk purse into a sow’s ear’. He can make marble and gold look like plaster and brass.
Trump is CRASS, simple as that. It doesn’t look good. Other politicos like the Bushes, Clintons, Obamas, and their respective cliques, are just as grasping, amoral, and dishonest as Trump but more polished. Trump is despised for exposing the naked face of what they all have in common (though some may remember that the incoming Carter and Clinton gangs were both regarded in much the same way by many in the D.C. Village).
Also, Trump’s tenure risks upsetting the game board in some way, even though he has proven to be pretty compliant since taking office. He was only supposed to be a stalking horse like Bernie, not to actually win. Hence the constant barrage of attacks from every element of the Establishment – right, left, centrist, whatever. Control of the electoral system isn’t yet comprehensive. That may get fixed though, once new model voting machines are installed under the banners of “reform” and “protecting us from Russian Interference”.
We have had plenty of crass people in political office, both Truman and LBJ come to mind, but this is the first President we have had in a very long time who has less than no idea how government works. He doesn’t know what his job is, or what Congress and the Courts do. This is someone who shouldn’t have graduated from 8th grade in New York with his total lack of knowledge of the American government.
The only ‘voting machine’ we use in my county is a Number 2 pencil to color in the ovals next to your choice. We have automatic scanners, but they are the same scanners used for scoring school tests, and if there is a question, you can count ballots by hand.
Yes, PJ, the GOP are busy rigging the system, but it will swing back after some tar-and-feathering and /or guillotines.
Nahhh… guillotines are so… elitist! The USA was founded on good ol’ rope & trees! And the GOP & RWNJ’s desperately want the old day’s back! A match made in heaven (if it existed, but they believe it does, so…) Applies to Aus. & UK also! We’d be doing them all a favor! 😉 😆
Ahhhh… The image does bring a melancholy smile… Yes, it does! 😀
They are only elitist if you sharpen the blade and put people face down… 😈
The Iranian version of a rope attached to the bucket of a front loader has a certain primitive appeal… 👿
If they get the Keystone XL pipeline built there will be a ready supply of hot tar across most of the country. 😈
LOL Probably true about the tar! May as well get some use out of the wastage. Plenty of chickens in the USA for feathers. 😉 🤭👍🏾
Was my big day today! Officially 60. I went out. Spent a few hours @ my fave cafe called Brewhouse. They are one of the best coffee roasters in Aus. I buy my beans there. They also make great lunches & pastries etc. Then I went to the library. Got home a few hours ago. Just made a late dinner. Kinda filled up on bad (but soooo yummy) things! 😍😊 Diabetes be damned today! Hmmph! 🤨🤭
It was raining & very grey. Why would I want to be outside, wet & cold! 😉 Brewhouse was nice, warm & cosy! And great coffee & food. I’m a regular there. They even gave me a free coffee & small cake w/ a candle! Everyone clapped. Was good. Best day this year. Mom was 60 when she died. So it was a day of melancholy & memories.
I feel pretty good, better than I expected in fact. 🙂
And on the plus side… I no longer have to find ways to escape our slave-labor “Work for the Dole” scheme to get my pathetic *entitlement* nor have to look for work! (After 60, they no longer apply. Even though they are insane given I’m on the *Reduced Work Capacity* (8-12 hr/wk) stream after they took me off Disability pension (with still NO explanation – but I KNOW it was to save the bastards $ as I get about $170/wk less)! All Politicians should be locked up as soon as elected! Hmmph! Ahhhh… Sir Terry, you were so right about XXXX (The Last Continent)! I’m applying to get back on Disability soon (Another stupid rule is that I can only apply once every 2 years)! The last 2 were disqualified on a technicality! The last paperwork, filled out by the Head of Surgery, a full Professor, after my surgery 2 yrs ago, was disqualified because she missed a box that required a tick/cross. The paperwork (6 pages) is designed to be confusing. Some check boxes, the absence of a tick implies a cross, others have to be specific. Also, you have 14 days to correct any errors. But they have no requirement to tell you if there are any! After 30 days, that’s it. See you in 2 years. Assholes!
Got this in my eMail news dump:
‘We only kill black people,’ police officer tells driver at traffic stop
So… An honest cop? 🤔🤨
You obviously are enjoying a happy birthday. At least you can still choose how you celebrate.
In the US it usually takes three attempts and a lawyer to get Social Security disability approved. Canada use to require annual evaluations, but then the amputees got together and complained that their missing bits weren’t growing back, so they changed it to every three years. I think the US also checks every three years.
Right after that video went public, the officer involved retired before he could be brought up on charges. He had more than enough time on the job, and the video made any defense nearly impossible.
Yeah. A friend I’ve mentioned here a few times over the years (A Linux guru who worked with Linus years ago), has Cerebral Palsy. Has no cure but they made him prove he still had it every 6 Mths. Finally w/ a lawyer, that was changed to every 2 years. Yet, the old crooked cow I lived with for awhile until about 6 years ago was diagnosed with Epilepsy 40 yrs ago. Been on disability ever since! Never checked once. And never another episode since diagnosed! She drove a School Bus, even though by law, anyone with Epilepsy has their license suspended. The equivalent of the DMV waived it on medical advice! Apparently, they don’t talk to CenterLink! But CL knew she drove a bus as she had to report the income. She was careful not to earn more than allowed to reduce her pension payments & got her tax back.
We win the insanity stakes! Beat that. *sigh*
There is no consistency in any of the systems, The people writing the rules don’t know much if anything about the illnesses or injuries that cause the disabilities, and sometimes seem to decide things by a coin toss, rather than reason and knowledge. There are all kinds of resources that can explain various medical conditions in layman’s terms, but no one in the agencies seems to know or care.
The real problem is that all sanity requires hiring a lawyer, because disability agencies all all seem to ignore the opinions of medical professionals.
My brother is legally blind — as in, blind as defined by the Social Security Disability legislation — and has been so for most of his adult life. Under the Social Security Disability legislation he doesn’t have to certify that he’s unable to work as long as he provides medical files proving that he’s blind (which he can do so, he has 30 years of medical files that add up to a 5 foot stack of paper about his blindness), he’s just plain old blind, disabled. He is applying for Social Security Disability shortly in order to qualify for Medicare, now that he’s doing contract jobs and no longer able to get health insurance through work. Even though he is blind as defined by the Social Security Act (i.e., by law), and doesn’t have to prove that he’s incapable of working because he’s legislatively disabled, and even though he has a 5 foot stack of paper proving that he’s blind, he *still* is ending up having to hire a lawyer to get his Social Security Disability processed correctly. And then they’re going to check on him every couple of years to make sure he’s still blind. Well, duh. Nobody’s figured out how to do eye transplants yet, of *course* he’s still blind!
happy birthday, kryten! but aren’t you supposed to slow down after 60?
http://cheezburger.com/70599425/funny-cat-video-maru-in-slow-motion
And people still claim there is massive fraud in the system. It is an insurance policy that is paid out of payroll deductions, The government has borrowed multiple billions from the Social Security trust fund, and they don’t want to pay the ‘loans’ back.
It takes an average of three attempts and a lawyer to to get the disability policy to pay out. The people receiving it need medical verification and a spotless application. You pay for it, but they don’t want to pay claims.
Hiya hipparchia! And thanks for the wishes & the link! 😀 😆
It’s amazing Bryan! The US Government sounds almost exactly like our Government! 😱 Whoda thought it?! 🙄🤨
*sigh*
They join fraternities instead of the military and their minds implode. It’s the legacy admissions to university – it makes people assume they are literate and might know what they are doing.