Trump signed of on disaster relief for Texas yesterday morning.

President Donald Trump announced Sunday that he “signed a Major Disaster Declaration” for relief for Kerr County in Texas, as the region deals with heavy rains and extreme flooding that have killed dozens.

Of course he’s going to help a red state. It will be another story when it’s a blue state. Just like the last time.

Mark Harvey, who was Trump’s senior director for resilience policy on the National Security Council staff, told E&E News on Wednesday that Trump initially refused to approve disaster aid for California after deadly wildfires in 2018 because of the state’s Democratic leanings.

But Harvey said Trump changed his mind after Harvey pulled voting results to show him that heavily damaged Orange County, California, had more Trump supporters than the entire state of Iowa.

Nope. He’s not a first responder, is he? If not, then it’s pure PR. He could just as easily go out there after the recovery efforts are done when he wouldn’t be in the way. Going out with the first responders means that he’s taking up space and resources that could otherwise be used to help people in need.

Also…

“I can tell you in hindsight, watching what it takes to deal with a disaster like this, my vote would probably be different now,” said Virdell, a freshman GOP lawmaker from Brady.

Probably. First hand view of the death and damage and he might, change his mind. Fuck him.

I suspect because they didn’t have all his video files. Couldn’t kill him if those files could get leaked after his death.

Who’s keeping the current list?

Mossad?

Oh, he never will. For his loved ones to be in danger he would need to be capable of feeling love in the first place.

“The only crime I committed is to love this country and to work hard and to provide for my kids,” she said.

Um… those aren’t crimes, are they? I mean, things are changing fast under Trump, but these aren’t really crimes yet, are they?

If I could control the weather, this woman would never not be getting targeted by lightning. She’d have to run serpentine whenever she was outside to dodge all the lightning bolts aimed at her.

“What we’re witnessing isn’t about security or solving problems,” they said in a joint statement, “It’s about inhumane political theater that endangers real people.”

Yep. It’s a theater of cruelty that would have delighted the Marquis de Sade.

Because wealth creates a kind of addiction cycle in people’s brains that drives them to accumulate still more wealth. They are not going to just move to another country or their island fortress because they need to keep making more and more money.

With too many jesters including the one on the throne.

Yes. Keep escalating until there is violent resistance, then escalate more by declaring martial law and violently suppressing that resistance. He will then keep martial law in place declaring that it is not safe nor secure to hold public elections. That will be the final nail in the coffin of American democracy.

after all they have the duty to protect people

No. SCOTUS has ruled that police have no duty to protect anyone except for special relationships like a prisoner in their care. The police (in the US at least) are not there to protect you. They are there to protect the interests of the state.

I have concerns on that front as well.

From another article about this that quotes a bit of the ruling.

In his decision, Moss ruled that neither the Immigration and Nationality Act nor the Constitution give the president and administration officials “the sweeping authority” asserted in his proclamation and subsequent guidance implementing the directive.

“The court recognizes that the executive branch faces enormous challenges in preventing and deterring unlawful entry into the United States and in adjudicating the overwhelming backlog of asylum claims of those who have entered the country,” he wrote. “But the INA, by its terms, provides the sole and exclusive means for removing people already present in the country.”

Moss said that a pair of provisions of federal immigration law do not provide “the president with the unilateral authority to limit the rights of aliens present in the United States to apply for asylum.”

He further found that the Constitution does not give the president the authority to “adopt an alternative immigration system, which supplants the statutes that Congress has enacted and the regulations that the responsible agencies have promulgated.”

Oh that’s gonna get under his skin. There will be catsup on all the walls today.

Not quite as loony as McConnell filibustering his own bill, but it’s close.

“If Americans want large spending — they don’t want to touch Social Security. They don’t want to touch Medicaid. They don’t want to touch Medicare. They want all the tax credits for this green energy and this child tax credit and this and that — then they should pay more taxes,” de Rugy said.

What a fucking crock. They could pay for it all by cutting military spending by a fraction of a percent.

They’ve released a name now. Wess Roley, 20 years old. Some news sites are reporting that it was the anniversary of the burning of an Aryan Nations camp in 2001. May not be any connection though since it happened years before this guy was born.

It would be a hit for Illinois, that’s true, but a win for the nation would be worth it to me.

I’m the only one who uses this IP address.

Are you sure? You are assigned an IP by your internet provider and they generally don’t change too often, but they do from time to time. Occasionally, when you reboot your modem your IP address can change. It’s possible that you had a power outage or something and when your internet came back up you were assigned an IP that had been previously used by a bot and flagged as such. You may want to check with your provider about resetting your IP address.

I have nothing but absolute respect for AOC and I would love to see her as President and I would certainly vote for her. However, I can think of only one person that would attract more vitriol from the right, and the media at large, than HIllary Clinton and that is AOC. Aside from convincing the misogynistic masses to vote for a woman, she’d have to convince them to vote for one who will be endlessly labeled in the media as a Socialist and Communist. And the masses will eat that up with no more understanding of the terms than the talking heads that will spew them across the airwaves and internet. She would have an uphill battle of biblical proportions just to win the Democratic primary.

On the other hand, I would trust AOC to run a better campaign than Hillary did. If any woman could get elected president in this country, it would be AOC. She would not blow off the working class and lurch to the center to try and court disaffected republicans. I also think AOC would do a good job sticking to issues and throwing republican failures back in their faces.

Having said all that, I don’t know if ‘28 will be her time to shine. Hell, it’s hard to make any call with confidence since Trump has about three and a half years to continue his rampage across this nation and there’s just no way to forecast what the situation will be like come primary season. At this point, I would be happier to see another candidate lead the ticket. One with similar positions to AOC but more palatable to those masses I mentioned above. The only one I really like right now is Illinois’ J.B. Pritzker.

I know he’s a billionaire but his actions in Illinois since he became governor show he is a good one. He has been pro-worker, pro-LGBTQ+, pro-choice, and has used his fortune to support progressive candidates. He is also pro-campaign finance reform because he doesn’t think people like him should be buying elections. He has also donated millions of dollars to organizations across the nation to help the left thwart republican plans to enact draconian anti-choice laws. If you’re not familiar with Pritzker, I suggest you look him up and see what he has accomplished since getting elected in Illinois.

If I could have any ticket in 2028, it would probably be a Pritzker/AOC ticket and I think they would wipe the floor with the right by focusing on issues that matter to people rather than kowtowing to mega-donors.